


Be careful who you tell.

by merhoran



Category: One Direction
Genre: Blog, Drama, F/M, Humor, London, Love, Romance, University, celebrity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-09
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 21:16:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 51,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/918111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merhoran/pseuds/merhoran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry uncovered his face and looked at me, his sight stabbing me right into my stomach. Tears that never fell flooded his eyes, he tried to smile but it turned into a hurtful grin. I bet that is how angels cry. So sad they can’t smile, yet so prideful they can’t shed a tear. Prideful because they know how beautiful they are, because they know what they can do to people, they know they can get whatever they want. But sad because they know the prize of it, they know perfectly how lonely they will always feel no matter what; they know they need company, but they are so tired of people that only want them because of what they are, not because of who they are…</p><p>Angels are wrathful; they are evil and selfish. They can kill you with just one look, they can leave you breathless with a few words. But angels are also peaceful; they are also kind and caring. They can save you with just one look, they can fill your lungs with a few words. And that was exactly what he was doing. He murdered me first and then he tried to bring me back to life.</p><p>That morning, Harry Styles was an angel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic isn’t like they usually are. I created a blog ran by a girl I imagined (the main character) and she uses the blog to tell her life while she’s living in London. So, basically, she runs a blog-diary and she meets Harry (this fic is only about Harry) and talks about it.  
> I posted it here so more people will read it but, just in case you would want to read it on the actual blog, it's ttremors.tumblr.com, and the password is merhoran (like my username). Since it’s a blog, the first post I ever made is the first chapter, the second one is the 2nd chapter, etc.  
> I'm sorry if you see something like (pic) or (link) something like that written in any chapter, but it's because it was meant to be on the blog and I had to add a pic or a song there, sorry, hahaha.  
> Well, if you have anything to ask me or want to read some more of my work, go to my Tumblr: stairsboys.tumblr.com.  
> Thanks, and enjoy!!

I live in that place where you can wear whatever you want and nobody is going to look at you, especially when you walk around Camden, where you can buy from fruits to an old Nintendo. You can wake up some morning wanting to be a businessman and wear a black jacket and a pair of dark brown shoes, or maybe you wake up wanting to be Lady Gaga and choose high heels and a pair of tight, really short shorts with a massive jacket made of feathers.   
In London you can be whomever you want to whenever you want to, that’s what made me fall in love with the city. You won’t find your college classmate just around the corner, or either that annoying aunt you hate.   
It isn’t America, but everybody looks like they just came out from the set of a movie. A horror movie, romantic one, high school kind. Twelve years old girls walking around the mall like they are thirty, thirty years old women walking around the mall like they were twelve.   
And nobody cares, they walk too fast to even see you.  
I work at Lush (link), in Westflied, three days a week five hours each day. I come out from Uni, wear my black uniform and go to Lush in bus while eating a sandwich with cheese and turkey. Lush is a nice place to work at, we sell perfumes, bath stuff and beauty stuff, even spa stuff; but everything is organic, made with natural products by us, the people who work there.   
I have a couple of friends there: Gina and Hudson. One of them is the most girly girl you ever met, and the other one is the most girly man you ever met. They are twins, I guess that’s the point. Gina is short, ginger and hyper. Hudson is tall, you never know what’s his hair color because he dyes it everyday, and he’s also a bitch. I met Gina the first year I went to London, at the Library of my neighborhood. It was a final exams period and the Library was always full of stressed, sleepy and nerd people trying to study, Gina among them. But Gina isn’t like other people; she is the kind of people that make too much noise and let the books fall on the floor by mistake, giggling when it happens and asking for sorry at the same time, though she never is. I used to stare at her everyday and laugh softly when those things happened, also when she took crisps to the Library and drowned them in her own saliva so they won’t make their characteristic crack they do when you bite them. I started to talk to her someday that the librarian told her that it’s prohibited to eat in there. She said she was sorry, as usual, but kept eating. When the woman left, she rolled her eyes back and grinned, sticking her tongue out. I laughed softly. The next second, a little piece of wrinkled paper flew over my table. I opened it and laughed at what it said,  
 _I bet that bun woman never had sex in her entire life. Do you want a crisp?_  
When I exited the library she was there, waiting for me and switching the weigh of her short legs from one foot to the other one.   
“I thought you were never coming out”, she said, sighing. “I’ve been fifteen minutes here waiting for you”  
She told me her entire life, from when she was 5 years old to nowadays; she was a year older than me. She also told me about her twin brother, when he first kissed a boy and his dad got so mad he even tried to phone a doctor because he thought his son was ill. Now he got over it, but Hudson can’t bring a boy to his house. She promised me she will introduce me to Hudson and she will find me a job. She did both, now I’m friends with her and her brother and I have a job.   
Gina is such a good girl, with a few problems and hyper behavior, but a good girl anyway.   
And that’s basically what my life consists in. I live in a flat and I have a cat named Marshall. I’m going to use this as kind of my diary, but I refuse to call it like that because that sounds too 10-years-old girl.   
I just want to collect my everyday of the second year I’m spending in here to see how my life evolves. Call me a freak, but I like the adventure that London is.


	2. Chapter 2

Today was a different day at work, a _celebrity_ came to buy something. Suddenly there was a lot of disturbance in the shop, it was flooded by teenagers and flashes though it says on the door that you can’t take pictures into the store.   
That’s why I hate teenagers.   
I asked Gina what was happening, she was as excited as the fifteen years old in there. Hudson was running like crazy around there and slapping the girls’ hands that were holding a camera; you could hear soft cries when he did it. I laughed at the situation.   
“Harry Styles is here.” Gina screamed.  
Harry Styles is an 18 years old boy with brown curly hair and beautiful lips that sing in One Direction, the boyband of the moment. He is quite hot, I need to admit, but I don’t understand so much flutter just because a boy entered the shop I work in everyday. It makes me wonder why don’t people scream when they see me. Well, Hudson usually does.   
As Gina told me, he hangs out with the coolest people from London (Nick Grimshaw is his bestie) and goes to the coolest music festivals of the city, such as Reading. Hudson laughed quite hard when Gina said he went to a gay bar when he was in New York. Cara Delevigne is his ultimate _fuck buddy_ as magazines say.   
“Why can’t be Zayn here instead of him?” Gina sighed. I think she meant this guy (it’s incredible how many pics and blogs dedicated to them are there on Tumblr, even fanfics). He is quite hot too, racial kind with long eyelashes.   
I didn’t like him at all in the moment I saw him. He looks like the kind of boy that is really sweet in the outside, an angel just fell from heaven, but then they are whores in the inside. I don’t like prejudices, but I can’t help it. It was also emphasized because of the fact that he got the shop full of girls screaming.   
He was staring at the hair stuff with frowny eyes, and I bet he wasn’t understanding anything.   
“Why don’t you go help him?” Gina was watching him like she was in love. “He seems lost.”  
“Why me?” I protested. I didn’t want to enter the crowd.   
“I’ll go.” Hudson was about to leave the counter when his sister grabbed his t-shirt.   
“No, you stay here with me, you gay boy.” They were like that all the time.   
So I had to dodge the girls and step in front of him, the best of my smiles on my lips. Well, he is a rich boy and we don’t have rich boys at Lush everyday. I’m there to _sell._   
“Do you need help?” I asked.   
When he turned to look at me I had to swallow. He has such pretty eyes, and also a very beautiful smile.   
“I’m trying to find a present to my sister Gemma, she likes beauty stuff and...”   
It was enough for me to start talking.   
“Well, you might find this interesting then.” I grabbed his hand without even noticing and dragged him to the beauty section, showing him our mascara. Everybody was staring at us. “If your sister has light eyes as you do, we have this one for sensitive eyes. Or maybe she likes this one for when she goes out, it’s called ‘Dramatic Look’; we also have this one for her everyday, ‘Mild and Gentle’. If she is a busy woman, then she might like this styling cream. It’s called ‘Dirty’ and it’s for those days when you can’t wash your hair and you have something really important to do, it costs 6.75 pounds. With it you can also get this sea spray cheaper, it makes your hair look fresh and smell like the sea, of course…”  
“Hey, hey, slow down, babe.” He cut me off, making me frown.   
“Where you trying to find a perfume?” I was confused. “We have this new one, it’s called ‘Gorilla Perfume’. Of course it doesn’t smell like a gorilla, apparently it smells ‘uncompromising, fresh and sexy’, what you boys like. I wouldn’t have called it Gorilla, though, it’s such a bad name since gorillas smell like zoo and…”  
“Do you always talk so much?”  
That made my jaw drop on the floor.   
“Well, this is my job, I’m here to help you and inform you about everything so you know what’s the best thing for you…”  
He laughed softly, his deep voice a few tones higher. He was looking at me with gentle eyes.   
“I didn’t mean it in that way, I’m sorry. I know you are here to help me,…”, he glanced at the plate with my name, but I replied before he could read it. I was quite annoyed.  
“Jade.”  
“I know you are here to help me, Jade.” He nodded. “But I’m trying to find like a package with a few things and that’s all…”  
I sighed and rolled my eyes back, thinking. I dragged him to the most expensive section of the shop and showed him a paper. It was a voucher for a journey in a spa, a massage that makes you feel ‘free, released and loose’ for 80 pounds, the most expensive thing in the whole shop; it was my tiny revenge.   
To my astonishment he just smiled and thanked me. In my college life, more than twenty pounds means not to eat in an entire week.   
“He will hide that voucher into a 2,000 pounds bag from Prada”, Hudson whispered to me when he passed by next to me, causing me to laugh.   
Then, Harry Styles left the shop, and with him the twenty girls that were there too.   
Now, sitting here with the computer over my lap while watching Love Actually (Hugh Grant is a very fit man for his age, by the way) with Marshall, I can’t stop thinking about him and frowning. I’m still annoyed at him, I don’t know why. He had a weird tattoo on his left wrist (a manly wrist I need to say. I have a fetish for wrists, don’t judge). He was wearing a white shirt and black trousers, he seemed to come from an important event. Or maybe he was going there?   
I wonder if I will see him ever again.


	3. Chapter 3

Last night I went to a massive party of Hollister. At Westfield there is a Hollister shop near to Lush, and apparently Gina had been flirting with one of the models that stay on the door for a few days; just sights at the first time, then sharing some words until she finally asked him what was he going to do that same night. This guy, Jean Pierre, said Hollister was throwing a party that night, and said she would be able to come if she brought her ‘cute friend’ with her.  
Her ‘cute friend’ ended up being Hudson, and Jean Pierre ended up being gay.   
“Come on, Gina, wasn’t it obvious?”, Hudson was cracking up, hitting the table with tears in his eyes, making the solid perfumes that were over it wobble. “ _Jean Pierre?_ Tanned AND toned body? Please.”  
I have never seen Gina so annoyed with her brother, she spent the whole day grinning and rolling her eyes back whenever Hudson spoke to her.   
“You are coming with us.”, Gina told me when we were leaving Lush.   
Two hours before the party started both of them were ringing my doorbell, Marshall purring and rubbing against my ankles.   
“What are you doing with that! You are going to ruin your beautiful body with that just like you’re doing with your face by using those cheap beauty creams.”, Hudson slapped my hand when he saw I was eating a big ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s. Cookie Dough, to be precise. Marshall growled when he saw Hudson, bristling his back hair to look bigger; they hated each other. “Stand back, stupid cat.”  
Hudson and Gina were still living with their parents, their rich parents. They were going to a private university where you don’t really need to be intelligent to get in. I’m not saying they get the pass mark because of his dad’s money, but it’s true that he gives a nice amount of money to the University each month. Hudson (and Gina, but basically Hudson) has a lot of money to spend in beauty stuff, but I don’t have enough to eat the entire month with the money that my parents send to me and the amount of it I earn by working at Lush. Sometimes Hudson comes to my house with a little bag from Lancôme and leaves it over the table of my hall without saying anything, knowing how much it bothers me. I always tell him I’m not poor, and he says he just wants to do me and the rest of the world favor and ‘keep your precious face being as fabulous as it is, or even better’ because ‘you could be a model but you don’t take care of looks’. He sees in me the twin sister that Gina never was, the kind that lets his brother take care of her and buy her nice stuff.   
During the next hour and a half he did my hair and chose my clothes while Gina was devouring my ice cream happily.   
“I’m the only one who isn’t going to have sex tonight.” She simply said when we glanced at her while raising our eyebrows. “At least let me eat.”  
The party was full of models (I’m not going to say people because models aren’t human, they are other breed in this world quite far away from humans), it was a very big basement well ventilated with a DJ on the top of it and three or four mega speakers that played hipster-electro music. They were playing Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap when we entered. There were a couple of cameras around there recording everything that happened into that cavern to upload it later on YouTube and Vimeo with cool indie music (or Call Me maybe, who knows) so everybody can see how cool Abercrombie & Fitch company is.   
“I feel ugly” Gina sighed while holding a glass with who-knows-what and taking a very big sip of it without making any grin. That’s one of the things that amaze me the most about Gina, her tight little body can bear _anything_.   
Hudson left us as soon as he saw Jean Pierre, leaving both of us alone with two glasses full of blue shit that tasted like a smurf. It was blue, you know. It started make us feel dizzy really soon, though. It was nice blue shit.   
We were dancing to 212 by Azealia Banks (of course) when I felt a pair of lips pressed against my ear, a deep drunk voice talking in it.   
“Jade, right?”  
I turned to see Harry Styles moving his head softly at the rhythm of the song. My heart stopped for a second before I smiled mischievously. Alcohol makes me feel pretty horny.  
“Harry, right?” I replied into his ear as well.   
The music was too loud. I bit my lower lip and gazed at his body, from his feet to his face. His curls were wet by sweat, his shirt rolled up and his lips looking really red. So kissable, I remember.   
_Harry Styles doesn’t miss a party._  
I ran a hand through my hair, blowing it to my back and placed both of my arms over his shoulders while dancing, still biting my lip. He smiled wide and danced with me.   
I don’t remember how much time we spent dancing to the deafening music or either how many shots of striking and light colored liquors we drank. I also lost Gina during the night, I don’t know how on Earth did I come back home.   
All I know is that I woke up this morning with a massive headache only compared to the hickey I have on my neck. I tried to find my mobile phone and found it on the floor next to a piece of paper with a number and a name,  
 _Harry x_


	4. Chapter 4

I was late for Uni today, also for work. I hided the hickey under a light scarf and ran to everywhere panting. When I arrived at Lush I sat and tried to catch my breath again, wishing that Claire (the boss) hadn’t seen me. She is such a bitch to be honest, a bossy boss.   
When Gina saw me she cried out and hugged me effusively.  
“You are alive!” She kissed me repeatedly.   
“I wish I wasn’t.”  
My teacher from Uni told me this morning that I was letting him down, apparently my grades are shit this semester and I need to improve them or I will fail more than one subject. He also asked me if I have any problem with my family or my friends because ‘you are not like this’. My teacher, Garret, is such a good man. I admire him a lot and I consider him kind of my friend. He is also quite hot for his age. But all I could think about while talking to him was to hide my hickey, and he noticed.   
So I told Gina everything that happened to me this morning and the related shit to last night. She said she doesn’t remember anything either but entering a guy’s car and driving to his house.  
“Ja…Ma…Le…” She was trying to remember his name.   
When I showed her the piece of paper with Harry’s number she almost died from a heart attack, trying to contain herself from screaming. Hudson came up to us carrying a big box with bath balls when he heard his sister screaming.  
“Do we have any problem, girls?” He asked and I growled.  
“Yes, this.”  
Gina pulled down my scarf and showed Hudson the big hickey I still have on my neck (now it’s yellow so it means it’ll disappear soon, I hope). He smirked and shook his head, coming closer to me to look at it and press over it, making me groan in pain.   
“Wow, does it hurt you?” He gasped. “The curly boy is a vampire.”   
Gina and I looked at each other with surprise and then at him, that was smiling impassively.   
“Did you just said…?” I asked while squinting and pointing at him, confused.  
“You were eating each other last night. Literally, seeing this.” Hudson nodded sitting next to me and pointed at my love bite. I moaned in horror and blushed, burying my face in my hands. “Don’t act innocent now, you were such a slut last night (I’m sorry I’m just saying the truth). You came to me in some moment and said you were going to have sex with him, you were so drunk. Are you serious you don’t remember anything?”  
I don’t remember _anything._  
“Then, you disappeared with him.”  
“Where did I go?”  
“And how do you want me to know?”  
I groaned again and cursed. What if I actually had sex with him and I don’t remember it? Well, you usually remember it when you have sex with a complete stranger who is also quite hot and famous no matter how much alcohol you have drunk, don’t you? At least some flashbacks.   
“By the way, Pierre drove me to his house last night. He lives in a flat near here, you don’t know how much fun we had…”  
“Ew, shut up Hudson.” His sister covered her ears.  
“Hey, don’t be homophobic.” He protested.  
“I’m not homophobic, I’m _Hudsonhavinsexphobic._ ”  
I laughed, but my mind was flying somewhere else while the twins kept fighting. I stared at the paper while biting my lips, if there is something I remember plainly is his mouth. I caressed my neck slightly over the side where the hickey is, and I couldn’t avoid a smile.   
His lips tasted like liquor, his drunk tongue dancing with mine and making my stomach twitch.   
“I’m going to phone him.”  
I got up and exited Lush under Hudson and Gina’s eyes. I grabbed the paper with sweaty hands and unlocked my phone.  
“Yeah?”  
His deep voice was still asleep, husky. I had a panic attack.   
“Niall, is this another prank of you and Zayn, because if it is then fuck you…I went to a party last night and I don’t feel like talking to anybody.”  
“Eh…no, no.” I swallowed. “This isn’t Neil or Za…him.”  
“Oh.”  
I could hear him removing the sheets and starting to walk. An awkward silence flooded us.   
“So you are…?”  
“Jade. I’m Jade.” I replied. I panicked again; what if he forgot about me?  
“Jade!” He seemed pretty happy to hear me. “How are you? Everything ok? It’s weird that you phone me, it’s always me who has to phone and stuff…”  
“Well, I’m different.”  
“Yeah, you were last night.” He replied immediately.  
“What do you mean?”  
But he didn’t answer; I heard a soft laugh in the other side. I swallowed again and coughed.   
“Do you remember something?” He asked. I murmured a low ‘no’ and asked him if he could explain it to me. Another soft laugh. “I would like to see you again, Jade.”  
“Well, I don’t know if I…”  
“Come on.” He cut me off with a begging voice, and I could feel him smiling. “I’m not doing anything tomorrow, what if we go to have lunch and I refresh your memory?”  
“Yeah, ok, yeah, of course.” I was confused, but I agreed.   
He said goodbye telling me that he would phone again to tell me the details, and I kept the phone in my pocket walking into Lush again.  
“How was it?” Hudson asked, both of them looking at me steadily.  
“I think I have a date.”  
Harry just phoned me and told me to go to Byron in 222 Kensington High Street at 1 pm tomorrow. To Byron.  
 _Byron._  
But I have a few problems now,   
-I’m not sure I want to go.  
-I don’t have money.  
-I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WEAR.


	5. Chapter 5

I realized that Harry is always frowning like he had something really important in his mind that got him worried. He also stares at people’s lips when they talk. I told him and he laughed, causing me to blush.  
 _“Why are you looking at me like that?”  
“Like what?”  
“Like this.”_  
And I mimicked his face.   
We talked for ages at Byron, he told me he was trying to find a new house in London but from now he was living here and there. He even stayed at a hotel for a while. I was wrong, Harry is such a nice boy. Not like 18 years old boys usually are, he is has something different. He listens when he has to, and talks when it’s time to. And what he talks about is always amazing. He told me about America and Australia, even Italy and Sweden. He told me how incredible L. A. was and how I need to go there sometime. It’s much different from London, there everything is warm and you never feel lonely.   
I think London is a lonely place sometimes, I’m glad that he thinks the same.   
He also talked about his band mates, and I noticed that he loves them a lot. I genuinely want to meet them, and he promised me he will introduce us sometime.  
His eyes shine when he talks about all of this, and I felt close to him for space of 3 hours. When we left Byron he offered me to drive me home, but I denied it with a polite smile. Then, he asked me if we could meet again some day.  
“I don’t know.” I replied while shrugging.  
I’m glad that we talked, to be honest. And he paid the food and our expensive whine. He is a gentleman and a really natural boy I need to admit, but he is also pretty ‘naughty’. The first moment I saw him, he started to make fun of me.   
“How’s your hangover?”  
“How’s yours, kid?” I replied, making him laugh quite loud.   
He knows I’m older than him, and he treats me as such. That makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I can tell he feels respect towards me when he talks even though it’s just two years of difference.   
“Yeah, so we snogged.” I nodded. “And then?”  
His smile was mischievous, it talked by itself.   
“Are you being serious?” My voice was too high, scared.   
He started to laugh really loud and I blushed, shutting my eyes.   
“I just drove you home when I felt sober, around 5 am.” He finally said and I breathed. “You tried everything in the car, though.”  
“I…touched you?”  
I was disgusted with myself, but he was having a lot of fun.   
“I don’t go to bed with drunk women.” Was all he replied.   
I loved the way he said _women_ , and I also love the way his lips move when he talks, according to his big hands. I noticed the way he walks is kinda awkward, really funny.   
“You have pigeon feet.” I told him. He raised both of his eyebrows on a half amused, half surprised grin.   
“My feet are awesome you bastard.”  
He messed my hair while saying that. People were looking at us in Byron but I didn’t care at all, I wasn’t doing anything I would regret, just having lunch with a…friend?  
“They might take pics, you know.” He whispered while we were eating.  
“I don’t care.” I replied in the same secret voice making him laugh.  
Being with him felt kind of like being with one of those amazing friends you have in high school, those that wear baggy jeans and a cap and flirt with you no matter what, but deep inside they aren’t actually _flirting_. They are just like that. During my high school life I learnt that only two things can happen with those boys: you two become bestfriends, or you fall in love, it’s irremediable. All I did when I was 16-17 was stare at boys, at the way they move and the way they express their selves to act later. I tend to analyze people, and men usually catch my eye.   
And it might sound creepy, but I find Harry Styles pretty interesting.


	6. Chapter 6

I read once that the more you have sex with one person, the more you like that person. I guess that’s why Harry gained at least three more points on my scale.   
We had sex last night.   
I finished later at Lush yesterday, around 11 pm because we had to tidy everything and leave it ready for the morning. Gina and Hudson left before I did because they had ‘things to do’, so it was just me with our boss. I guess he saw me when I was leaving.  
“Are you following me?”  
That made him laugh. He told me he was having dinner with a friend at Wagamama (there is a Wagamama at Westfield too, Westfield is heaven). It was true, he introduced me to his friend, though I had heard about her before, from Hudson. It was Lou Teasdale, and she did the hair to women such as Caroline Flack (Harry dated her I think?) and apparently also to One Direction. She is a nice woman I think, she treats Harry like he’s her son. They look really close, like they know everything about each other, something that made me a bit jealous. Well, not jealous, but out of place while they were eating and talking about people I don’t know. They weren’t impolite though, they tried to explain me everything. She’s helping him to find a new house in London.   
When Harry finished his dinner both of them accompanied me to the parking. I usually go to Westfield in my bike because I live about 15 minutes away from it, but it was a rainy day so I had to take the bus, and the bus that takes me directly to my house finishes at 10 pm. I growled, I had to take more than one bus or walk home.   
“I can take you home.” Harry offered. “I need to take Lou anyway.”  
Lou is mother of an adorable baby called Lux, she showed me pics of her with Harry doing silly things. She had to come back home early because her sister/cousin (I don’t remember) Sam was taking care of her while she was having dinner with Harry, ‘business dinner’ they said, something I didn’t believe. So we took Lou to her house and said goodbye driving towards my house.  
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!” Lou joked but made us blush.   
He drove me home without any problem, he remembered the route to my house perfectly. I don’t remember what we talked about during the way, I was too nervous, my heart racing and my hands sweating. I could feel something different between us, like an atmosphere flooded by tension. He was noticing, but he seemed much more comfortable than me. I guess it was because he was _creating_ that atmosphere.   
“We’re here.” I murmured mostly to myself when he stopped the car.   
“Yes, we are.”  
I glanced at him, who was smiling. We both knew it.  
“Do you want to enter?”  
Without saying a word he got out of the car and followed me upstairs. When I took the keys out from my bag he was already sucking on my neck and making me giggle. I opened the door and he slammed me against the wall, devouring me and making me groan. He had a funny relation with my teeth, though. Whenever our teeth crashed while kissing he growled and frowned, annoyed. But then he slipped his tongue through them, even touched them with his fingers once, causing me to laugh. He was still frowning, as usually, and making me wonder at what.   
“I’m sorry.” He breathed. “I’ll be gentle.”  
“Don’t be.”  
His laugh was so low that time it made me shiver, his eyes covered by his curls as he removed his own shirt. I gasped and caressed his torso with my fingerprints, barely touching it. His smile was dark, full of lust. He carried me to my bed and closed the door behind him with his foot, slamming it in front of my cat Marshall, who growled and scratched the door all night until I stopped screaming. I guess he thought Harry was killing me in my bedroom.   
But he was almost doing it. I swear that guy was born for it. His long fingers, his wet tongue, his strong arms and toned body, his thick lips…He hovered every inch of my body with his.   
_“So warm.”_ I remember he hissed as he placed his palm flat over my knickers, teasing.  
When he lay next to me, sweating and still moaning, he got up to open the door of my bedroom and let my cat in, caressing his head before lying again and falling asleep.   
This morning, when I woke up, I thought he left. Guys always do that. But when I entered the kitchen he was there, feeding my cat with milk over the counter while drinking some water.  
“Morning, babe.”  
His shirt was opened and his trousers were unclipped, his eyes were a bit red but much more shiny than the night before. His smile was even wider as he kissed my cheek. You could definitely tell he had sex.   
“I can’t believe this cat doesn’t hate me, it’s the first animal that doesn’t growl when they see me.”  
“Please, put the water back into the fridge.” I simply replied.   
He just nodded and did what he was told after drinking a bit more, allowing me to admire his strong neck going up and down with the water travelling down his throat. I bit my lip and blushed, my eyes flying down his body until they landed over his crotch.  
“You are staring.” The back of his waist resting against the counter.   
“What?”   
“At my crotch.”  
I drowned with my own saliva.  
“I can’t believe you are shy now after the things you did yesterday night.”  
“Harry!”  
He laughed darkly and pulled me closer to him, then lifted me and sat me over the counter, causing me to tip over the bottle of water and whimper when the cold liquid wetted my tee. Marshall ran away from the kitchen with a high growl.   
“The fucking bottle of water, Harry Styles.”  
“Fuck that bottle.” He groaned. “I want you.”  
I smirked and wetted my hand with the water over the counter, then drew his abs with my wet hand until I reached his shaft, making him gasp and shut his eyes.   
“Is it cold, baby?”  
“Fuck you, Jade.”  
I laughed quite hard at his frustration and kissed his half-opened lips. I started to fun my fingers up and down on him and he slammed his fist against the kitchen wall with a moan, resting his forehead over my shoulder.   
“Is this going to be like this all the time, Harry?”  
“What do you mean?” He breathed while biting my neck.   
“Just sex.” I whispered, my hand still working on him. “Only sex.”  
“Yeah, why not.”  
I stopped moving my hand and I tried to catch his eye. He glanced at me without understanding why did I stop and unconsciously pulling me closer, wanting me to keep going. His face was so close to mine we were breathing the same air.  
I wanted to ask him if he ever watched Friends with Benefits.   
“Then, Harry, I don’t want you here when I wake up.”


	7. Chapter 7

Today was a pretty boring day. I didn’t go to Uni or either to Lush. I watched two movies: Friends with Benefits (so I’m aware) (Justin Timberlake is fucking hot by the way) and Finding Nemo, ate sandwiches and phoned Gina. We talked for ages and I told her everything. I could hear Hudson around there commenting about Harry and I.  
“He still has acne!” I heard him screaming.  
“So do you.” Replied his sister.  
That annoyed Hudson quite a bit, who apparently hit her and they started a catfight while I was still on the phone, waiting for them to finish.   
I bitched on the computer, skyped with my eldest brother who wants me to go to his house at Brighton and visit our parents and my new niece (Eddie, my brother, is married to a really pretty woman called Samantha and they had a daughter three weeks ago, I still haven’t seen her but on Skype). I decided it was better to go out and buy food for Marshall and myself at the market, so I took a coat (it’s freezing these days and it isn’t even October) and entered Tesco. I bought a pack of six croissants (I already finished them all), two Snickers (they are waiting for me at the kitchen) three Redbulls (I’m drinking the third one so I’m a bit excited) and my cat’s food.   
I went to a garden next to my flat and watched people running, going for a walk with their dog or simply sitting on a bench just like me. There was a pretty hot boy in front of me reading a book with his dog next to him, a massive white husky that fought with his bell, which was tied to the bench in front of me. He was resting his back over a tree with his long fingers around the book. His hands reminded me of Harry’s and that made me think about his two missed calls from this morning, two missed calls I didn’t want to answer and didn’t feel like returning. The truth is, I am a bit annoyed at him. I never liked that ‘fuck buddy’ thing though all I ever had was that. That was why it surprised me seeing him in my kitchen, even bothered. I tend to push people away because, what if I fall for some guy and end up like Gina?   
Gina spent four months seeing the same guy every night at his house, she was so in love with him but he just wanted her for sex. Some day, she told him the three magic words and he laughed at her.   
_“You stupid little idiot.” He replied._  
She cried for two weeks straight. I am scared that might happen to me with Harry or any other boy. But the thing is, Harry seems different. It’s not just that he is a SEXGOD (literally a sex god), he is also really nice and polite, even cute. It feels pretty easy to have feelings for him, and I don’t want to. But he phoned me twice.  
Well, so this guy with the book was glancing at me from time to time until he winked an eye, making me giggle. I decided it would be fun to get up and go talk to him.   
“Nice dog.” I said.   
His dog looked as excited to see me as his owner, but the dog couldn’t hide it. It jumped over me almost making me fall on the floor and I gasped, scared for a second.   
“Don’t worry, he’s just very effusive.” The guy said. “I’ve been looking at you for a while. What are you doing here on your own?”  
Glasses, dark hair, pale skin, thin and a beautiful face. Intellectual kind. I decided I was interested on him.   
“I was just going for a walk.” I smiled, shrugging. “I spent the entire day at home and I was getting tired of it. So, what are you reading?”  
 _“The best friend of the man is the dog.”_ He simply answered.   
I glanced at his book and it was full of puppies with massive eyes and dogs. He was a freak of dogs. I decided I wasn’t interested on him. I left him there saying that I had things to do at home and ran away as fast as I could, coming back to my house and saying ‘hi’ to my cat. Well, I talk to my cat sometimes, but it’s normal. I live alone with him and I promise I have never read a book of kittens.   
I grabbed my phone and looked at the two missed calls for god knows how long until I told myself I should phone him back. When I was about to, my phone rang. It was him.   
“I was thinking about you.” I said, and immediately covered my mouth with my hand. “I mean…I was going to phone you.”  
“What are you doing tomorrow?” He ignored the fact that I’m as awkward as a gammy bunny.   
“University in the morning and then shopping with my friends.” I replied, confused. “Nothing at night.”  
“Then I pick you up at 9 in your house.” He was smiling. “There is a barbeque at Grimmers’.”  
He hung up before I had time to protest. I guessed Grimmers was Nick Grimshaw, and I stayed there staring at the phone with a stupid grin for a long time.   
Fuck buddies don’t invite each other to their friends’ parties, do they?


	8. Chapter 8

It was five to nine when Harry rang my doorbell. I was on the sofa between Gina and Hudson, my tired feet naked from the five hours of shopping. Gina smiled wide and Hudson rolled his eyes back when the doorbell rang.  
“He is eager.” Hudson said.  
Hudson is really protective and jealous towards all the guys that come closer to Gina or me; when I first met Gina she was dating a really normal boy and Hudson hated him. It was annoying sometimes, but also cute and funny.   
Harry was especially hot last night, though he was just wearing a normal white t-shirt and a blazer. Gina jumped off the sofa and ran to open the door, followed by me in a normal speed and Hudson, who was groaning like a grandpa.   
“You must be Gina.” Harry said when he saw her.   
“How do you know? Are you alone?”  
Gina was searching for someone (Zayn) behind Harry, and seemed pretty disappointed when she checked that he was coming on his own.   
“Don’t worry.” Harry laughed, noticing. “I’ll phone you when I’m going out with…”  
Harry didn’t finish the sentence since he didn’t know who was Gina’s favorite, so I whispered Zayn’s name causing Gina to blush and punch me gently on my shoulder while Harry laughed out loud. Then, he saw Hudson leaned over a wall with raised eyebrows and crossed arms.  
“And you must be Hudson.” Harry shook hands with Hudson and kissed his cheek. “I’m really happy to meet you. Jade told me such funny things about you. And also about you, Gina.”  
That made Hudson blush. After all, he likes men more than Gina and me together, and Harry is one of those that don’t go unnoticed. Plus he is very polite, what makes Hudson like a boy even more.   
Harry was starting to get nervous, playing with the keys of his car.  
“Let’s go.” I closed the door behind me and walked towards the elevator.   
I turned to see my two friends leaving my flat by the stairs and buzzing like excited bees. I winked an eye at them while shrugging one shoulder. That made Hudson laugh (I guess that means he accepts Harry) and Gina whisper something to me that looked like ‘bitch’ in her lips. I blew a kiss to them before increasing my speed to get next to Harry, who was definitely noticing but didn’t do anything, just a knowing smile on his lips.   
Nick Grimshaw’s house is more than amazing. It is simple, not too big and not too many things in it, but it has a very beautiful and green backyard with flowers and he put candles all around it, making it look like a mini-fairy tale garden. I gasped when I saw it and Harry smiled next to me.  
“Do you like it?” He whispered, and I simply nodded.   
There were a lot of people there already, really pretty girls and hot boys, some women with their hair dyed in a hipster way and a few men that seemed very important in London just by the way they looked. All of them were drinking, laughing, eating, flirting, dancing… Basically having fun.   
Harry hugged Nick in the moment he saw him while he was messing with his curls; then introduced me.   
“Grimmers, this is Jade.”  
“Hello, babe.” He kissed both of my cheeks. “I am Nick Grimshaw, but call me Grimmers, alright?”  
“Or Grimmy.” Harry teased.  
“Can I call you Nick?” I asked in a whisper.  
He laughed really loud and nodded, rounding my waist with his arm and dragging me with the other people that were there. Grimmers is such a weird man, not really tall but his hair has a considerable length; he talks a lot and always smiles, his mouth is massive and he hugs basically _everybody._  
“Go have fun.” Harry told me before leaving me alone in the garden.   
So, I was on my own surrounded by almost 50 people and I only knew Harry, who was talking to ALL OF THEM at the same time. He didn’t even introduce me to anybody. He just kissed my cheek and left. As the night went on he was getting more and more drunk and I didn’t drink more than a glass and ate some little sandwiches that tasted like heaven. I talked to a few girls and guys but I didn’t really get on with them, so I ended up sitting on a stool with Lou Teasdale (thank God she was there), Harry’s hairdresser. I already knew her from that other night and she is a quiet woman, so it was nice to sit with her and talk about things. I asked her where were Harry’s band mates.   
“I think Louis and Liam are with their girlfriends.” She explained. “Niall is clubbing with Josh Devine, the boys’ drummer, and…I have absolutely no idea where Zayn is.”  
She told me funny stories about them and invited me to her house whenever I wanted to. She said that she felt kind of old there, and that it was nice to talk to a young girl like me, she said I reminded her about herself when she didn’t have ‘ugly boobs and bent stomach’. I told her she was pretty nice for her age, and she laughed. Then, I also told her she reminded me of my mum and she laughed again, but shook her head in disapproval. I tried to fix it telling her that I meant her quiet and polite but funny behavior, but she said it was alright.   
Anyway, I couldn’t stop looking at Harry. He was whispering into some blonde girl’s ear and she was laughing quite hard. His hand was on her back, over that place where the back finishes and the butt starts, and it was under her shirt. I could feel his hand over the skin of the girl moving with the rhythm of the song that was playing in that moment. She was licking her lips while staring at him; she definitely wanted him and that had my throat dried, mostly because he didn’t seem very minded to pull her away from their dangerous distance. I was staring at them with worried eyes while biting my nails and moving my leg vigorously.   
“Is everything ok, Jade?” Lou was also staring at them discretely.   
“Yes, I’m fine.” I smiled to her but I was dying of jealousy in my stomach. Well, everybody is a bit jealous (I’m a bit more) and he didn’t look at me in the whole night though it was him who invited me to go there. When Harry and the girl left the garden to enter the house I growled softly. “Excuse me for a second.”  
I entered the house too with the excuse that I needed to go to the toilet and saw Harry with the blonde slut talking in whispers, her butt was resting over the back of a sofa and Harry’s crotch was resting over hers. I could smell the alcohol in their breath and saw the surprise painted on their faces as they saw me.   
“Do I interrupt something?”  
The girl was confused, and Harry was caught. He pulled away from her and blinked twice before opening his mouth to say something but not saying anything. I chuckled and the girl understood; she left the room with a grin on her face and I waved a goodbye.   
“You can go to get her back.” I shrugged. “I don’t mind.”  
“Are you mad?” His voice reminded me of my seven years old cousin when he knew he did something he shouldn’t. I shook my head and my hair blew from one side to another. He stared at it before sighing and leaning on the sofa. I grinned and shrugged, inviting him to say something. “I am sorry I left you alone the entire night. I am sleeping here but I can drive you home whenever you want to.”  
“I was talking to Lou.” I said. “And you can’t drive me anywhere like this.”  
His face lighted up though, he said he was really happy that I made friends with Lou and that we should go to her house to see Lux someday or hang out together.   
“Only if you don’t leave me alone again.”   
“I said I was sorry, Jade.” He suddenly got serious and frowny.  
“And I said it was ok, Harry.” I replied with the same tone. He frowned even more and scratched his temple effusively. “But have you seen that girl? She is much taller than me and also much prettier, her body is tight and her legs are larger than her torso. You were caressing her back, almost her ass.”  
“We are not even dating and you are already jealous.” He chuckled making me clench my lips into an ugly grin.   
“Well, maybe I was.” I admitted, shrugging. “But it’s normal, isn’t it? Your life looks amazing next to mine, all of your friends look like they just came out from a photoshoot, but have you seen my friends? A hyper ginger and a gay boy. Then you phone me, you call me ‘babe’, take care of my cat, you stare at me while smiling and think I’m not noticing, you make love to me better than any other guy did before, you…”  
“Well, I am like this.” He cut me off with a serious expression on his face, getting up from the sofa. “Take it or leave it.”  
“No, I know you aren’t.” I replied immediately. “I talked to Lou and she told me stories about you, and you aren’t that kind of boy. She seems to know you better than you do.”  
He stared at me for a while before closing his eyes releasing a long sigh.   
“You are drunk.” I said. “I’m walking home.”  
“You are not my fucking mum, Jade.” He almost yelled, then calmed down a bit. “And you can’t walk to your house from here, you don’t even know where are we. You will get lost and I’ll have to come and pick you up instead of fuck that blonde chick, you know?”  
“Shut up, Harry.” I ordered him. He immediately closed his mouth and stared at me with clenched jaws. We both knew he was doing that because I told him he wasn’t that type of boy.   
He was still frowning and breathing heavily, his chest going up and down repeatedly. He bit his lower lip hard before grabbing my wrist and slamming me against the closest wall just like he did in my house, kissing me roughly for a few seconds.   
“I am sorry.” He breathed against me.   
“Don’t be.” I replied. “As you said, we aren’t dating. You can fuck whoever you want to.”  
“But I really like you, Jade.”  
That made me smile. I grabbed his chin and peck his red lips. He looked wild, his long fingers tracing the contour of my neck, so instead of pecking his lips again, I bit them causing him to groan in slight pain and pull me closer.   
“Say what you said about me again…” He begged and I looked confused at him, so he repeated my words. _“You make love to me better than any other guy did before.”_  
His words (mine, but anyway) stayed in the air for a while before I opened my mouth to talk, our bodies pressed together and our foreheads touching. He was waiting for me to say it again with a hand grabbing my ass.   
“You look like a kitty when you are mad.” I said instead of that. He shook his head and laughed softly, biting my lip just like I did before.   
“You can stay here for tonight.” He offered. “You can sleep with me in the guests’ room, Grimmers won’t mind and…”  
“Yes.” I cut him off with a smile.  
He dragged me to the bedroom immediately and lay me over the bed, kissing all over my body as he undressed slowly me and whispered lowly ‘sh, sh, sh…’ to stop my increasing moans. Last night he made love to me better than before, and I fell asleep over him two hours later.   
I woke up with the sun light and dressed up, leaving Nick’s house silently and missing Harry’s warmness while waiting at the bus stop.   
I still wonder why did I leave.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s been such a busy week. I had to hand in a project for University so I barely went out, I didn’t even went to Lush, I asked our boss Claire if I could take a free week to finish my project. I am afraid she can replace me for other girl that does my job better, though Claire is really happy with my work.   
I went to University this morning to talk to my teacher Garret, he is helping me with my project because, as he said, I’m his favorite student. I feel kind of guilty that I have a special treatment, but Garret and I connected since the first year I came in the University. He isn’t too old, not much more than 30 years, and he is really smart. He usually says he only gets on with his smart students, so I feel proud that I am one of them. So we talked today at the classroom and I explained him my doubts about the project, and about what would be better for me in the future. Next year I have two possibilities: I can go work at a company as a scholar and then continue with Uni the next year, or just do the entire four years without working in nothing.   
“You should continue.” He said. “You are smart enough to find a job in whatever you want just when you finish University.”  
He also added ‘And I would miss you’. That made me blush; Garret is an attractive man. I handed in the project this afternoon and I am finally calm.   
I haven’t seen Gina or Hudson in six days, and Harry in five. I was too busy to worry about it, but now that I handed in the project I can’t stop checking my phone and wondering why didn’t he phone me. He knew I was busy; I told him when he went to my house five nights ago, but I haven’t even got a text from him on Whatsapp. I guess he has been busy with his One Direction stuff, but… I miss him. I miss his touch and his lips and his eyes and his voice; I miss his laugh and his smile, and his soft words. Everything he says sounds like velvet, like he is caressing the words with his deep, husky voice. And his calm face at the same time as he speaks, his lips drawing the words when he whispers on my ear while we are in bed, never close enough.   
_“Mine.”_  
I am confused about all of this, about Harry. Today, I placed myself in front of the mirror and stared at myself for around 10 minutes, trying to get something straight. And I got something: I don’t know how the hell I feel about him. I mean, I shouldn’t feel anything at all, should I? We just have fun together, no feelings. I never actually felt anything from anybody, I had a few boyfriends but I never fell in love with them, so I am new in this feelings thing. Because I definitely feel something for him, but…what?  
Last night I finished the things I had to do really soon, so I called Harry and he drove to my house. The same second he entered the door he started to kiss me passionately, he didn’t even say ‘hi’. I sometimes love the fact that he is like that, that he is always so horny he doesn’t even have time to say hi, but when he lays next to me in bed and pecks my lips before turning around and falling asleep, I hate it. And I hate myself for telling him to leave every morning.   
But that same night, when he lay next to me, he didn’t turn around. He stared at me for a while, thinking that I wasn’t noticing. Harry also does that too often, frowning and memorizing every shadow of my face and my body. He drew my jawline with a finger and ignored my eyes when they pierced him, like I wasn’t alive, like I was a statue.  
“Staring is rude.” I whispered. I considered that talking in a loud voice would be out of place in the quietness of my room.   
“Sorry.” He whispered back, but his voice was rough. He removed his eyes immediately and his fingers hided under the sheets. I wanted to tell him that I was joking, that I didn’t mind him staring at me at all, but I didn’t.   
We spent the next 20 minutes in silence, I rested my head over his collarbone and he rounded me with his arm. I couldn’t stop thinking.   
“You know, Harry, I sometimes wonder something…”, he looked at me while caressing my hair, blinking slowly and breathing deeply. I knew he was listening to me. “Where do memories go? I mean… When you love someone and you say you will never forget them; and maybe you don’t, but you won’t remember them as the same way you used to. Memories distort, get lost. Or do you remember all the words you said to the last person you loved, Harry?” He didn’t answer me, he just kept listening without changing his expression. “You can remember sensations, maybe a song or a smell can bring you back memories about that one person, but it’s not the same person you used to love. It’s funny, you promised yourself you wouldn’t forget any of the words you said or either the feeling, and when you look back… Both of them disappeared. That’s sad in my opinion. It would be nice if you could keep all those memories somewhere as long as you don’t need them, but take them back when you want to remember, when you want to come back.”  
“If you could do that, everybody would live in the past”, he said after a while. His pupils where lost somewhere far away from that bedroom. “That’s why words are useless, Jade, you never remember them. Just the sensations, the feelings. Do you remember what you said, or what you felt? You must feel, not talk.”  
We made love again after that. And he didn’t say a word, he just closed his eyes and felt. But what he didn’t know is that I really wanted him to say something, I needed him to make me feel special, away from _physically_ special. But that night something was different in the way he made love to me. He was still rough and messy, he was still animalistic, but he was also slow. Painfully slow.   
He wanted it to last as long as it could, and whenever we lost contact he groaned. His big hands roamed my body and grabbed my waist closer to him, his white teeth nibbled on my earlobe as he whispered low words into my ear, making me shiver and ask for more. But all of that had a different tint.   
As I watched his sweaty face he glanced at me, his lust eyes had a weird spark in them. When our eyes met, he looked away and even blushed. This time, we both knew that what we were doing was more personal, and he stopped his thrusts for a second just to kiss me.   
“Jade…” He called my name through the kiss.  
“Yes.”  
“Don’t do this to me, please.” He begged with a whimper, I could feel pain in his voice.   
“Do what?” I was confused, trying to find his eyes again but he didn’t let me. He was hovering me, his lips hanging over mine, his breathing mixing with mine, but his eyes were focused over the other side of the bed. He suddenly seemed like a little kid to me, a sad little kid that needs someone to play with because he feels lonely. He bit his lower lip hard and I felt my stomach twitch. “Hey, Harry, what is wrong?”  
“Nothing.”  
The next morning, when I woke up, he wasn’t there anymore. That made me really mad, I thought that time had been different. I know it’s my fault for not letting him stay, but if he really wanted to, he would have stayed. When a boy wants something from a girl, he goes for it and gets it, doesn’t he?  
He also left a note over my bedside table.  
 _Thank you, Jade._


	10. Chapter 10

Today I went to University at 8AM with my eyes closed. I had 5 hours of sleep last night. I was late for class and Garret talked to me again at his office when I finished.  
“You never were late for class.”  
“I am sorry.”  
I blushed and he smiled politely, then he told me to sit down on a chair in front of him.   
“You don’t need to ask for sorry, you are old enough to know what you are doing, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong.”  
“You? Why? It’s me who’s a bit decentralized these days. I think I am too worried about my grades I get stressed and I don’t do anything. I worked hard on this project, though, I promise.”  
Garret covered my hand with his, making me blush again. He stared into my eyes like he wanted to know what was I thinking, and my heart started to race. That sight wasn’t the kind of sight that a teacher gives to a student.   
“Well, but I am your teacher and my must is helping you.” He released my hand like it burnt him and got up immediately, leaning on the wall while frowning. “Now, leave. I have some work to do.”  
I left his office a bit confused and left the building to go home, but while I was walking I heard someone calling my name. I turned to see Harry hiding behind a trash with a huge smile drawn over his mouth. He placed one finger over his lips and told me to come closer.   
“I always wanted to be a spy.” He murmured while giggling like a little child.   
“What are you doing here?”  
“Sshh, I know a place near here where nobody will see us.”  
He almost dragged me to an alley with a massive gate at the end of it. The gate had ivy all over it and a few little flowers, and a padlock closing it.   
“I can’t believe I never saw this.” I murmured, staring at the old gate. “It’s next to my University.”  
“Now, jump.” He smiled.  
“Sorry?”  
In all my life I haven’t ever climbed anything, I have a massive fear to heights. I started to shake my head repeatedly and he gave me a sad puppy grin. That was all he had to do to convince me. He jumped first to be at the other side and catch me when I fell so, as he promised, ‘your princess ass won’t get hurt’.   
The inside was even better. It wasn’t really big, but it had a marble fountain in the middle and green grass around. Close to the fountain there was a white house with shelling walls. I bet it used to be an amazing house. I wondered why was the grass still green when that place seemed pretty old and abandoned. I asked Harry and he smiled wide.  
“When I was 15 I found this with my sister. An old homeless man was taking care of it, he said it used to be his house until his wife abandoned him and took his children away. I think he was just crazy. I guess he is still alive and taking care of it…It’s been two years since I don’t come here.” I watched his nostalgic smile and he put his hands in his pockets with a shrug. “Since I wanted to fuck with my last girlfriend from high school.”  
“You asshole!” I laughed, pushing him gently. He replied with a soft kiss that made me melt inside, then we stared at each other for a few seconds, his hand resting over my cheek. He was wearing a brown beanie and a blue and white t-shirt, combined with dark blue jeans and also brown shoes. Curls were showing up from his beanie on each side of his head. “Why haven’t you phoned me?”  
“Where do you live?” He smiled. “I was in America, I travelled there for the VMA’s. I didn’t have time to even call my mum.”  
America? VMA’s? Mum?   
“I’m sorry, I was working hard on a project and I didn’t go outside of my house in the entire week, I didn’t even meet Hudson and Gina…”  
Mental note: I need to call Gina and Hudson.   
We sat on the grass and he showed me a bag with sandwiches, starting to eat them alleging he was hungry.   
“Well, it’s ok, I just arrived Heathrow this morning with the boys. They wanted to come with me to meet you, but I avoided them.” He was laughing.  
“And did you win any award?”   
“Three.” He replied, a proud smirk on his lips.  
“Wow, that’s incredible!” I was actually surprised, and I kissed him again. “I am proud of you…”  
“And Katy Perry pecked me.” He murmured through the kiss. “And Rita Ora and Taylor Swift were there too, flirting with me… I had a lot of chicks to chose.”  
“And who did you chose?” I cut off the kiss, feeling a bit jealous.   
“You.” He replied with a smirk, pushing me closer to him to keep kissing me.   
When Harry does that he just disarranges me, something inside of me breaks or switches, and I feel a strong kick right into my chest making me run out of air. And I glance at him and he looks perfectly normal, his smile still showing proudly on his lips like he just said the most normal thing ever. I blushed and looked away, hearing him yawn.   
“I have jet lag.” He explained. “I travelled around 12 hours…And I spent 30 minutes at Lou’s house before coming here.”  
“You should have stayed at her house.”   
Harry lay on the grass with his hands under the back of his head, showing me his perfect arms. I bit my lip as he closed his eyes and fell asleep. So I was there with nothing else than a slept Harry and 10 sandwiches. I decided that the best choice was to take a couple of them and go to explore that little garden and house.   
While I was eating one of them (I still wonder if Harry made them, they were tasty) I tried to open the door of the house. It was hard, but I finally got it. The house was full of dust, it made me cough and I had to blow to see the inside of it. It was much bigger on its inside, and it still had some furniture. A sofa here, a closet there, a table at the end of the room. There was something there that didn’t let me step into the house, I felt like I was invading someone’s house though it was abandoned. But I took a deep breath and stepped in, running a finger over the surface of a little table and dirtying my fingerprint with dust. There was a picture over the table, I grabbed it and stared at the four faces. A man, a woman and two kids. I cleaned the picture frame’s glass with the sleeve of my jersey and wondered if the man in the picture was the homeless man Harry told me about. I left the picture over the table with carefulness and walked around the -I guessed- living room. It was kind of scary though the midday light leaked through the windows. It was a big room, two doors on each side and a beautiful stair that took you to the second floor. I was about to open one of the doors when I felt two arms round me tightly.  
“Aren’t you scared of ghosts?” Harry whispered in my ear.  
“Nobody died here, did they?” I asked, and Harry shrugged turning me to peck me. Then, he released me and went sit over the dusty sofa. “There is a picture right there. Is this man the one that takes care of the garden?”  
I showed him the picture and he frowned before smiling.  
“He wasn’t crazy then.” I left the picture over the table again and he was still sitting there while smiling. “I need to tell my sister. We used to come here very often and talk to that man, but we never believed his stories. He liked me, but he specially liked my sister…He was inoffensive, but you know, she has always been a pretty girl…”  
“How is your sister, Harry?” I asked, and he looked surprised by the question.   
“Well, she…Well, her name is Gemma…” He was nervous and started to stutter. “She is brunette, I don’t know, like me but in girl and…”  
“Harry, I didn’t mean _how does she look like._ ” I laughed. “I meant _how is she._ ”  
This made him even more nervous. In the three weeks I have spent seeing Harry, he never told me a word about his family, when I told him everything about mine. He got up and leaned on a wall next to me.  
“We are really close. She is always there for me, I don’t know, even now that we don’t see each other as much…We usually skype each other and stuff. When our parents divorced she was like the _strong one._ It’s not like I hate my stepdad, I really like him, but you know. I also had a lot of problems with girls in high school, but the biggest problem was their boyfriends.” He laughed at himself and shook his head. “I used to spend the nights at her bedroom talking, and whenever I felt sad or lonely…I sneaked into her bed during the night and she pretended she never noticed though she hated sharing bed with me. You already know, I tend to steal the sheets…” I giggled, but still wondered what did he mean with ‘sad or lonely’. I never thought Harry could be a sad kid. But he kept talking. “I wasn’t a lonely kid at school, I’m not saying that, but…Well, I used to go around there stealing other guys’ girlfriends and just getting drunk and having fun, but…Well, the truth is that I always need someone to actually _love._ Back in those days, Gemma was the only girl that was so close to me. Fraternal love is also a good cure…”  
He stopped talking. I watched him switch the weight of himself from one foot to another, uncomfortable. He was looking at everywhere but me, and I stepped in front of him, placing my hands over his shoulders and resting my chin over the curve that his neck does. He looked like that young, sad boy that needs a cure for his sad days.   
“I sometimes miss that life.” He murmured, holding my waist. “I love being in One Direction, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I love the boys and the new people I’m meeting, but…I miss sitting on the table and have dinner with my family, then going upstairs and take my computer before going to bed soon because I have school the next day. I miss sneaking into my sister’s bed and talking to my mum while sitting on the sofa. I love travelling around the world with the boys, I love my fans and the feeling that I get when I see a hole stadium full of people screaming our names, cameras around us recording every move we make because there are girls that don’t want to miss _anything_ …But Holmes Chapel will always be my home, I guess.”  
I didn’t know what to say, I never felt that. I travelled from Brighton to London two years ago and of course I miss my hometown, but my face isn’t everywhere and nobody -but my family and my teachers- expects nothing from me. I can tell he was a bit stressed and tired, and I could feel the sadness on his voice, but I didn’t know what to do to help him. His sentence was echoing on my mind.   
_The truth is that I always need someone to actually love._  
I kissed him softly trying to find an answer for all the questions that the sentence caused me. Could that one person be me? Do I want to be that person? Does he want me to be that person? Where are we going with all of this?   
I cut off the kiss and I posed the biggest question I had in my mind, a question that was eating me from the inside.  
“What are we, Harry?” He didn’t understand it, frowny eyes again. “I mean…We spent the last three weeks seeing each other here and there, we first decided it was only going to be sex, then it seems to be something else…Last night you left my house in the morning.”  
“You always say you don’t want me there when you wake up…” He was confused.   
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but we both know that the last time was different…”  
“I like you, Jade.” Was all he said, and I whimpered.  
“I like you too, Harry, but I need you to tell me what is this so I know how to act.” I sighed. “Should I phone you just because I want to talk to you? Invite you to go have lunch with my friends and I? Hug you in the night? Because that’s what I want to do, but I am scared of doing it.”   
“Why?” He asked me slowly. I stared at him while biting the inner side of my cheek.   
_Because I might fall for you. Because I might be falling already, and I don’t know what is it on your mind._  
That’s what I wanted to say but didn’t. It’s still making my hands sweat, it’s still not allowing me to sleep. He waited for an answer, but since he didn’t get it, he closed his eyes with a deep breath and smiled when he opened them.  
“Come here.” He said, opening his arms and surrounding me with them. I rested my chin over his shoulder again and hugged him closer. “I don’t know what is this, Jade, but I know I still don’t want it to end…”


	11. Chapter 11

When I arrived at Lush this morning Hudson was kind of mean to me. We went to Wagamama to have lunch after work with Gina and another girl who works there, Lizzie, and he didn’t ever stop saying rude things whenever he could, until Gina intervened. Lizzie was uncomfortable.  
“Could you please stop acting like Regina George from Mean Girls, Hudson?” His twin sister said. In that moment he was complaining about my shoes. He almost drowned with a grilled prawn. “You spent the entire day saying her clothes are ugly when she’s wearing the Lush uniform just like you, you also told her that her work in University sucks and you even dared to tell her that she needs to change her lifestyle because she’s going nowhere and, oh, she will also get fat. What the fuck is wrong with you, Hudson?”  
“Hey, no, Gina, it’s ok…”  
Hudson’s face was red and his lips were pressed against each other like he was containing himself. Gina was even angrier, though, I knew he hated when her brother started to act like that (to people she loves). They stared into each other eyes for a few seconds before Hudson turned to look at me. Lizzie was murmuring that she should go.   
“We didn’t see you in a whole week and then, the day you tell us you can meet, you forget it and go with that stupid Harry boy.” He finally said.   
Hudson is really jealous, he always wants his friends for himself and if someone interferes he feels annoyed. I never had a relation with someone as long as the one I’m having with Harry since I met him, so I guess he isn’t used to it. Everything he does is for his friends, though. He is always there when you need him, and he hates seeing his sister or me sad. He knows that guys can hurt us, so whenever we start to get closer to a boy…he starts to feel annoyed. Plus Gina is a girl that falls easily, not like me, so she’s always suffering because of some stupid guy.   
“And you know what, I believe that relationship is stupid as fuck. He doesn’t love you, Jade, and you are foolishly in love with him in just one month. In three months at most, he’ll find another celebrity and you’ll stay here, at Lush with us. Boyfriends stay for a while, friends stay forever.”  
“What you’re saying is really selfish, Hudson.” I protested, frowning and feeling something squashing the pit of my stomach.   
“No, you are being the selfish one.” He replied. “Can’t you see Harry Styles is out of your league?”  
Yeah, I know it. I know Harry Styles is out of my league. He is famous, he has an amazing live and he hangs out with models and the coolest people from London, and then there is me. I came from Brighton to London and got lost in the underground the first day, I haven’t made any real friends but Gina and Hudson in these two years, and now I’m not sure if I have them anymore. So I got up and left Wagamama, followed by Gina and hearing a confused murmur from Lizzie.   
“Is she dating Harry Styles from One Direction?”  
I walked fast towards the parking and unlocked the locker of my bicycle with such force I even hurt my fingers. I could hear Gina calling my name from the distance, but I ignored her.   
I am still as mad, but I understand Hudson. I understand he acts like that because he wants the best for me, and I understand he can be kind of jealous because I spend a lot of time with Harry, but if he wants the best for me why doesn’t him let me be with the person I want? Because I really want to be with Harry Styles.  
“Tell your stupid twin that I’m going to be with whoever I want and if he doesn’t want me to, then he can go to fuck off.” I didn’t mean that.  
“But he is right, Jade, he just expressed it in the wrong way. You ignore us and when we are together all you talk about is him and…”  
“Ok, whatever.” I cut her off, riding away with my bicycle.   
Gina hasn’t phoned me after that either. I guess both of them are mad at me, Hudson because he’s like that and Gina because he’s her twin brother.   
I just came back from a party at a club somewhere with Harry. I called him the next second I came back home and asked him what was he doing tonight. I didn’t mind about University tomorrow at 10AM (and I still don’t though it’s 5AM), I just grabbed a tight nightdress with tacks and some high heels, brushed my hair a bit and painted my eyes in black. Harry picked me up in a black Audi that impressed me quite a bit. I bet it’s more expensive than my flat. Inside of it there were two people, Harry and who seemed Zayn, his bandmate. He kissed both of my cheeks with a massive smile that made me blush and look at my feet, causing him to laugh.   
“She’s even shy.” Zayn chuckled. “How cute, Harry.”  
Zayn is a quite nice guy, and also really hot. He has such a weird accent and his eyes shine like two wet dark stones. He definitely likes to party and drink, and he really likes girls as well. He flirted with me all night under Harry’s amused eyes, dancing and whispering into my ear, then going to other girl and doing the same, inviting them to some drinks and placing his lips close enough to theirs to make them gasp, but never touching them.  
“I thought you had a girlfriend.” I yelled at him once over the loud music.   
“And I do.” He laughed, biting gently on my earlobe and making me shiver.   
When I finally had some time alone with Harry at the toilets under the blinding, blue lights hanging from the mirrors he was kind of mad. We were making out, I was sitting on the sink, my legs wrapping his waist closer to me and his hands resting under my ass, lifting me a bit from the sink and trying to pull me closer too.   
“Trying to make me feel jealous with one of my best friends.” He clucked, his voice teasing me. “That’s not nice, babe.”   
“It was him.” I whimpered when his hands tightened on my ass. I love when Harry gets rough, but he always scares me a bit, I’m not sure about _how rough_ he can get. “But he is irresistible.”  
“Why did you phone me?”  
“I had a fight with Gina and Hudson.” I replied in between moans. He stopped kissing me and stared into my eyes. “Don’t worry, it’ll be ok. They don’t want me to be with you because they say this won’t end up fine and that shit…” Harry bit his lower lip and frowned, the toilet lights forming a weird grin over his face. “I said don’t worry, Harry. I want to be with you…”  
I glanced at his body, his shirt half-opened shirt and his already hard crotch made me smirk. One of my hands stayed there and started to rub over the fabric to make him grow harder, the other one travelled from there up to his neck, his strong neck moving as he swallowed. He was aware I was staring at him, and that made him get impatient and scared. I still don’t know why, but he gets nervous when I stare at him. My hand drew his neck and his jaw line until it reached his precious lips, thick lips, pink lips, magic lips. I focused on them and moaned just by the thought of how great they make me feel, how they dance against my skin making me tremble, how they curve on a smirk when I tangle my fingers in his curls and groan his name lowly, begging for more. I wanted to touch him, feel him.  
“I want your mouth…” I whispered, almost a moan.   
“Where?” He teased, making me raise an eyebrow. I got closer to his ear and whispered the words he wanted to hear and some more. “You’ll fucking get it, baby…”  
Now I am here and my eyes are about to close by themselves, but I can’t stop thinking about him and feeling like Carrie Bradshaw, talking about my sexual life. It makes me feel guilty, the fact that I am thinking about Harry instead of worrying about my friends, but I can’t help it. I am letting myself go, and I know that will haul me problems. But letting go sounds so good and so easy… Seeing him I can only smile like a 16 years old and slap my forehead, biting my lip to stop a sigh.   
_“Like that?” His husky voice rumbled against my heat.  
“Yeah, yeah like that…”_  
He makes me go delirious.


	12. Chapter 12

I’ve been trying to sleep for the last 30 minutes. I lay flat over the bed, rest my hands over my forehead, sigh, turn off the light, sigh, turn around, turn on the light and start over again. I can’t stop thinking about what happened today, it seemed like the longest day ever. University is driving me crazy with projects I don’t have time to do, my boss told me I’m going to get paid less from now because of the crisis (apparently I’m lucky they didn’t fire me) and my family won’t send me more money because they think I’m old enough to get it myself, though with my dad’s salary they have more than enough. I think my parents are going to divorce and I’m worried about my little sister, she’s only 16 and she’s basically living with my brother and my grandparents. Hudson doesn’t talk to me and Gina glances at me from time to time with a sad look.   
I just turned on the lights again, I think better with the lights on. It might sound childish and stupid, but I feel scared and unprotected when the lights are off. I feel like everything around me is unknown, and that bothers me until it reaches the point I can’t think straight. It doesn’t happen always, just in moments when I feel as pressured as right now, here talking about my life when I should be sleeping or working on my University projects.   
I saw Garret at the street today while I was going back home and we kissed. He first talked about University, he explained me some stuff I asked him about our class and then we kissed.  
“We aren’t at Uni right now, we can do whatever we want to.”  
I didn’t say anything, I just stared at him without any kind of expression on my face. I had a crap day, he made me feel ridiculous at class when I asked him something that, for him, was an ‘stupid question only you could ask’ (he asked for sorry after it at the end of the class, though) and everybody laughed at me. Since I didn’t say anything he started to feel uncomfortable and coughed.   
“Are you still mad at me because of what happened this morning?” He didn’t get an answer. “I am sorry, Jade. I shouldn’t have kissed you, it was a mistake. I am your teacher anyway. See you at University.”  
“Bye.”  
The truth is that I wasn’t rejecting him and I didn’t mean to be rude to him, I was just shocked. Why would a man like him kiss a girl like me? He is around 10 years older than me and he could be dating a beautiful and intelligent woman, but he kissed a student. When I arrived home around 12 at night, a tall figure was standing at my door, wearing skinny jeans and a long coat, also a pair or Superga’s. Everything was black but his brown curly hair. He turned to face me when he heard my footsteps on the pavement, and his smile grew wider under a streetlight. He threw a cigarette on the floor and smashed it with the tip of his shoe.   
“I didn’t know you smoke.”  
“I do sometimes.” He shrugged. “When I don’t feel right.”  
Harry was waiting for a kiss, at least a peck on his cheek, but he didn’t get anything either. I didn’t even ask him what happened, why wasn’t he feeling right. I entered the key on the door lock and rolled it twice to open the closed door. I didn’t invite him to come in, he did it himself and placed his coat over a kitchen chair. He was wearing a white tee.   
“I was rehearsing with the boys.” He explained, in case I was wondering. But I wasn’t. “They just went clubbing, but I came here.”  
“You should have gone with them.”  
It’s not like I didn’t want him to be there, but I still had things to do at home and I was tired, so Harry wasn’t anything else than an annoying kid I had to take care of by the night, just like my little cousin, and the way Harry gets entertained isn’t the same as my cousin’s.   
Anyway, he frowned and swallowed, looking pretty hurt but trying not to show it. He sat on the chair he placed his coat and leaned his torso a bit forward, resting his forearms over his legs and warming up his hands with his own breath. I rested my waist over the counter after stealing a cigarette and lighter from Harry’s coat.  
“I sometimes do it too.” I said in a whisper, referring to smoking.   
“Did you have a hard day?” It seemed like he was afraid of asking and of my reaction.   
“Yes.” I replied, and it sounded like a death warrant.   
Harry got up and walked towards me slowly, measuring the space between us like he was a hunter and I was his prey, I was looking at him with distrust. I let him get so close to me our waists were pressed together, his smell confusing me and his deep voice lulling me. I grabbed both of his cold hands and warmed them up with my breath. We were staring into each other’s eyes, but when he leaned to kiss me I rejected it, and he suddenly got really mad. The hunter couldn’t get his prey.   
“It’s not only you who has hard days, Jade.” He frowned, pulling himself away from me. “I also have a lot of work sometimes, that’s why I come here. Because I want to chill for a while.”  
“Oh, so you come here to chill.” I said. “That’s so romantic, Harry.”  
“You know I didn’t mean it in that way.” He murmured in anger.   
I turned to the counter and filled a glass of water, drinking it slowly.   
“Why are you being so rude to me, Jade?”  
I turned and watched his red eyes, his half-opened mouth and his chest going up and down.   
“You should go.” I murmured. “It’s late, I am tired.”  
I felt him doubt for a few seconds and then, with an abrupt movement, he took his coat and opened the door, not forgetting his lighter resting next to me. He grabbed it with anger and glanced at me for a second before leaving my flat without saying a word.   
I stayed at the kitchen for a while before taking a pencil and a paper and starting to do some household bills of the house rent, also food, new clothes for the coming autumn and winter…and I ended up crying while doing it, sobbing like a baby and trying not to wet the numbers with my tears. I wanted to get up, phone Harry and tell him I was sorry, beg him to come over my house and love me the way he does; or maybe phone my two best friends and fix things between us. But I clicked on my contacts and ended up on the ‘G’, calling Garret.   
“I want to see you. Not at University. At the little part next to my house, tomorrow at 1PM. We can go have lunch.”   
“Why?” He was confused. “What has changed?”  
“We just need to talk.”  
That was a big mistake. Now I have a date with Garret, no friends, no Harry and a paper over my living room table with a few wet dots on it.   
I just turned on the lights again to try find a plan to get out from this situation, but I don’t seem to find any. My cat is staring at me like sympathizing with me, and I am staring at him with jealousy. What wouldn’t I give to be him right now and be able to sleep ¾ of the day and lick my ass.   
I’m going to turn off the lights because the things look as scary and unknown as with on lights.


	13. Chapter 13

Garret is one of those intelligent, polite, good looking and funny man that women usually go to hunt at clubs by the night and he rejects them with a gentle smile and a shook, leaving them with even more wanting. But he is also my teacher, and that feels weird.  
Today wasn’t the best of the days either. Garret and I sat on a bench for a while, talking about trivial stuff and then walked to a coffee to eat some sandwiches. Egg and tomato for me, chicken and yogurt sauce for him. I _hate_ yogurt sauce.   
“Jade, I saw your project for my subject.” He suddenly said. The situation was really awkward.  
“And?”  
“Well…” He grinned. “I expected more.”  
“Shit.” I cursed, feeling a brick fall in my stomach. “I am sorry, professor, I…Shit.”  
“Don’t call me professor, Jade.” He smiled. “I have a name.”  
“I am sorry, Garret.” I murmured shaking my head.   
We were outside of the coffee, he was leaning on a wall and I was in front of him, eyes closed and a feel of guiltiness on my stomach. That was when I felt two hands around my cheeks, cupping them.   
“You don’t need to be sorry, sweetheart.” Yeah, he called me _sweetheart._ “You’ll get a good grade anyway, you deserve it…”  
“I also have a name, _Garret._ ”  
He laughed darkly and shook his head. I have never seen him like that, he was staring at my lips with want, so much want I felt uncomfortable. But I also felt very good, being desired by a man like him…  
So he just kissed me, and it felt so good yet so wrong. We were properly making out in the middle of the street, his hands tangled in my hair and my body pressing his to the wall. He was so good with his tongue he even made me moan, and my thoughts flew to what could he do with his tongue in other places. He tasted like yogurt sauce, though. And like he read my mind, he said:  
“You live near here, don’t you?”  
I bit my lip and the next second we were opening my door. Something inside me was yelling, “CHEATING! YOU ARE CHEATING!” but I decided to have fun and forget about the 18 years old boy. This one was 30, and much more experienced I bet. I was undressing myself as I walked to my bedroom, but he held my waist and placed his lips close to my ear.  
“I would like it over your desk.” I shivered. I couldn’t believe what he just said. “You know, the _teacher and student kink…”_  
“But that’s real life.” I pointed out in a whisper, causing him to laugh. The truth is I had never done it over a desk and it felt exciting, so I finally nodded.   
He sat me over the desk kissing me everywhere and making me moan like crazy, his crotch already a bulge. I started to play with it, rubbing it and caressing it to make it grow. He did the same, opened my legs and started to tease over the fabric while we were kissing roughly.   
“You are already wet.” He chuckled proudly. “Did I do this to you, huh? To the girl who rejected me yesterday?”  
“Oh, man.” I groaned, shutting my eyes and making him chuckle again. Then, he removed my panties and slid a finger inside of me. “Oh, shit.”  
He started to pump in and out of me, making me moan lowly and dig my nails into his naked shoulder while sucking on his neck. Garret was good at it, but not as good as I expected. I mean…Harry’s hands, the way they seem to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, the way they always have me whimpering and begging for more… And there was something different too, something I didn’t really noticed until he started to whisper in my ear while he slid his cock inside of me. What Garret and I were doing was simply fucking; it was hard and fast, it was obviously pleasurable, but it wasn’t the same. I also started just fucking with Harry, that’s the only thing I ever knew until I met him. From that day, everything with Harry is…different. He is slow, also rough and powerful but slow, he wants to enjoy each second and he never misses an inch of my body before starting, teasing everywhere. He can never get enough from me, he wants it all, I want it all.   
“Don’t go.” Garret whispered when my doorbell started to ring. I opened my eyes and glanced at it. “Don’t open the door, Jade.”  
I shook my head and moaned a low ‘no’ as he continued fucking me, making my bum lift from the desk with each thrust. But whoever that was outside insisted, again and again, ring after ring, starting to make me feel annoyed until I heard his deep voice outside, I could tell his lips were pressed against the thin line between the door and the doorframe, yelling my name through it.  
“I know you are there, Jade!” Harry rang again. “Please, open me babe, I need to talk to you…”  
Garret heard it too and we both looked at each other in the eyes, warn in them. He slid out of me and I groaned for the lost of contact, feeling kind of empty, but also less guilty. To be honest, whenever I close my eyes all I can see is Harry, and not a very happy Harry. Tears in his green eyes, lips even more red because of the uncontrolled biting, frowned eyebrows and trembling chin. It makes me sick.   
“Who is that?” Garret whispered.   
I didn’t answer him, I just grabbed the shirt I dropped on the floor and closed the buttons quickly, running to open the door. I told Garret to stay there and sneaked the head out from the door to see a tall figure, thin legs dressed with blue jeans and long torso wearing a tight jersey, also blue. He smiled shyly.   
“Hello.” He whispered.  
“What are you doing here?” I was sweating and my hair was a mess, he frowned and then figured it out since I wasn’t wearing anything else than a shirt.   
“Are you with someone?” His voice turned deeper and scary.  
“You…don’t come in the best moment, Harry.” I stuttered. “I was sleeping, I was really tired and annoyed last night and I’m sorry for acting like that but now you should go home because…”  
“Who are you with, Jade.” That was a question but didn’t seem like.  
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to tell a lie, but couldn’t. Harry was standing in front of me, his beautiful lips curved into a sad knowing smile. He knew I was cheating on him, he knew it _is_ cheating, because what we have isn’t a one-night-relationship.  
“Who are you with in there, Jade?” His voice was weak now.   
“My teacher Garret.”  
Harry frowned confused and grinned in disgust, letting out a hurt and horrified whimper, running his hand through his messy hair, pulling hard. I swallowed when I saw him clenching his fists and jaws, talking through his teeth.  
“How old is he?”  
Just in that moment Garret popped out from my house, putting his coat on and murmuring a low ‘I’m sorry’ before leaving. He didn’t look at Harry, but Harry didn’t miss any of his movements until he couldn’t see Garret anymore. Then, he glanced at me looking for an answer.  
“Thirty.” I replied. He nodded once, twice, three times. “Come in, please.”  
Harry sat down on my sofa and stayed there without saying anything, moving his leg nervously and staring at some point over my wall. I stepped in front of him and tried to catch his eye, something I shouldn’t have done. They were red and swollen; he was holding back his tears.   
“Why?” He just asked. I shrugged. “Is it because of last night? You told me to leave, Jade, you rejected my kiss…I came to be with you, just like right now…I never come here just to fuck you and leave, Jade, I didn’t mean what I said in that way…I can’t just fuck you, I can’t, I don’t do that…I’m not like that…”  
His voice was broken, his hands trying to express himself as he played with his watch and drew his own wrist tattoo. He looked like a kid again. I smiled fondly and squatted in front of him, placing a hand on each knee of his, looking into his sad eyes.   
“I am sorry.” I whispered. He frowned as I caressed his cheek, trying to pull him closer to kiss him. That made him go crazy, he got up all of a sudden, almost making me fall on the ground. “Harry!”  
“No, you are not!” He yelled, mad eyes accusing me so bad it hurt. “You are not fucking sorry, Jade. You get jealous whenever I come close to any girl but I am not allowed to?” He chuckled. “I don’t think you know who the fuck you are dating, Jade. You are not the only one who has temptations, in fact, everybody wants me. In fact, I can do whatever I want with you. I am Harry Styles, you are just a girl that works at Lush.”  
“Are you being serious?”   
I was shocked. Harry was walking along the living room and I was sitting on the floor, I couldn’t move a muscle. _Did he actually say that?_ His breathing was heavy, his eyes were still red and he was clenching his jaw so hard I could feel his muscles through his cheek.   
“Did he feel good?” He asked, looking at me with rough eyes. “Better than me? Can he fuck you better than I do, Jade?”  
“Leave my house, _Harry Styles._ ” I said his name as it was a curse. He shook his head repeatedly and stayed there. “I told you to fucking leave my house, Harry.”  
But Harry didn’t leave. He sat again on my sofa next to me so his knees were at the same height as my face. He started to murmur soft words as he buried his face in his hands.   
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”  
I had the roughest feelings, mixed feelings. I hated him, but also loved him. I wanted him to leave, but I wanted him to stay. I wanted to forgive him, but at the same time I couldn’t.  
“You laughed at me.” I said. “You despised me. Am I actually just a girl that works at Lush for you, Harry?”  
Harry uncovered his face and looked at me, his sight stabbing me right into my stomach. Tears that never fell flooded his eyes, he tried to smile but it turned into a hurtful grin. I bet that is how angels cry. So sad they can’t smile, yet so prideful they can’t shed a tear. Prideful because they know how beautiful they are, because they know what they can do to people, they know they can get whatever they want. But sad because they know the prize of it, they know perfectly how lonely they will always feel no matter what; they know they need company, but they are so tired of people that only want them because of _what_ they are, not because of _who_ they are…   
Angels are wrathful; they are evil and selfish. They can kill you with just one look, they can leave you breathless with a few words. But angels are also peaceful; they are also kind and caring. They can save you with just one look, they can fill your lungs with a few words. And that was exactly what he was doing. He murdered me first and then he tried to bring me back to life.   
That morning, Harry Styles was an angel.   
“I am sorry, Jade.” He repeated. “But you have no idea, Jade, you have no idea…When you say you had a bad day…All I actually want to do is cheer you up, you know? And last night when you rejected me…” He laughed sadly and shrugged. “It’s weird to feel as lonely as I feel when I have loads of people around me, isn’t it?”  
“You are confused.” I murmured. “You are too young for all of this. You are known worldwide and you are just a boy…”  
He stared at me for a while with his swollen eyes and shook his head like I was a lost case. He took a deep breath before talking again.   
_You have no idea, Jade, you have no idea._  
“But, Jade, I am not a boy anymore, I _do_ lo…”  
“You are confused.” I cut him off, repeating what I just said. “I know how does that sentence end, Harry, and it’s not true. You can’t say that to the first girl you like more than usually, you know?” It was me who has a weak voice this time. “You are confused, just like me.”  
“You are not confused.” He whispered, getting up and stepping in front of me, inches away. “You are scared.”  
He stabbed me again with that. I frowned and he looked away, shutting his eyes tight, and I had time to see a single tear fall down his cheek before he dried it quickly. Then, he left. After all, Harry is not an angel; he is just as human as I am.   
I let myself fall over the sofa and let my own tears fall. He is right; I am scared of my feelings, I am scared of his 18 years and his fame. I am scared of what he does to me.


	14. Chapter 14

Gina phoned me this morning and asked me if I wanted to go to her house. I asked her if she was mad at me, she said no, but Hudson can’t even hear my name. He wasn’t going to be there, neither her parents, so I took my coat and I was there at 6PM with a bottle of vodka in my bag.   
Gina and Hudson live in the most amazing house ever, three floors with ten million of rooms, expensive paintings, two beautiful dogs with long gold hair and comfortable sofas. I spent my entire last year there, their parents are barely at home. Their mum is always shopping or with her snob friends and heir dad is a businessman (I still don’t get how do they have such cool kids, I guess it’s their reaction to parents like that), so I got my biggest binges there with both of them, singing out of our lungs and dancing with their dogs, which were also kind of drunk. It’s not our fault that they like whisky.   
“If Hudson comes here and sees us two together he’ll spend a week without talking to me.” Gina said, and I sighed.  
“I brought this, by the way.” I showed her the bottle of vodka and she let out a cry of excitement, grabbing it and dragging me to the kitchen. She opened the bottle and took two little glasses, filling them with vodka. We used to start with vodka shots. “For the old times.”  
“For the old times, baby.” She winked at me before drinking it without making any grin and then filling it again. “Let’s play some music for our private party, yeah?”  
“Yes, please, I really need to get drunk.”  
She turned her TV on and played MTV out loud. Taylor Swift appeared on it wearing glasses and pajamas, causing me to groan and drink from the bottle, not even using the glass.   
“Harry likes that girl.” I pointed out.  
“Trouble in paradise?” Gina laughed, sitting in front of me and moving her little feet at the rhythm of the music. I took a big gulp before nodding, the vodka immediately causing me to feel a bit dizzy. “Don’t drink like that, J, you look like a truck driver and the only truck driver here is me.”  
“Shut up, I paid for this bottle.”   
The truth is that I feel great when I’m around Gina, she always makes me laugh and I can be myself. I can make stupid faces, I can burp, I can cry, I can laugh so much I fall on the floor and she’ll never judge me (mostly because she’s worse than me). That is why she’s my best friend I guess, and that’s why I love her so much.   
It was 8PM and we were already drunk as fuck, each one of us lying on a sofa. Gina decided that it would be better if she took a whisky bottle for herself and she let me the vodka one.   
“I miiiiiiiiiiiiiissed you, Gina.” I cried out from the sofa, turning heavily to look at her. “These last couple of weeks we have barely seen each other! I miss being alone with you like this.”  
“No, you don’t, you were having amazing sex with a celebrity around there.” She laughed, but I could feel she was a bit hurt.   
“That’s not true. When I’m not with you, I’m always a bit sadder, or more bored.” I protested.  
“Oh, of course, we are like Snooki and Jwoww, aren’t we?” She joked.   
“You are Snooki because you are short and loud.” I teased her. “And I’m Jwoww because I am hotter.”  
“And a slut.” She finished, making me laugh.   
“Harry and I aren’t together anymore.” I chuckled after a while without saying anything. “Two days ago I fucked Garret and got busted.”  
There was a deep silence on the room, later broken but a loud cry from Gina:  
“YOU FUCKED WHO?”  
“Over my desk.” I whispered. “He thought it would be hot fucking me over a desk since I’m his student.”  
“YOU FUCKED WHO?” She repeated, making me laugh.   
“GARRET.” I yelled.   
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…” She got up, walking in circles around the living room. “Why? How? WHAT?”  
“I don’t know, Gina, I mean…I have always liked Garret a bit, you know, he’s hot and he’s an adult… And he seems to fancy me as well.” I shrugged, Gina staring me from the end of the room. “Harry and I aren’t meant to be together, he goes out with cool people and flirts with models and singers such as Rita Ora and Taylor Swift, I don’t know.”  
“The perks of _not_ being a wallflower.” Gina sighed, letting herself fall over the sofa, causing me to laugh. “But I thought you really liked him…”  
“And I do.” I murmured. “I really fucking like him, that’s the point. What if I fall in love and then he breaks up with me? He is so cute, Gina…you have no idea. He is really funny and kind, he treats me like I am made of glass or something and I could break anytime in front of him. And in bed… Jesus, I have never met anyone that makes me feel like he does in bed. Not even Garret, who has 10 more years of experience than him. Have you watched Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging? He is just like Aaron Johnson, a fucking sexgod.”  
“If you don’t take risks you don’t win, Jade.”  
I stared at her while frowning for a while before trying to get up, then falling on the floor with a heavy and loud CRASH. Gina couldn’t stop laughing, the bottle of whisky on her hand as I tried to get up again, rubbing my hurt knee. They were playing You and I by Lady Gaga on MTV.  
“I love this song.” I said, finally getting up and jumping on the table, standing over it.   
“What the fuck are you doing, Jade?” Gina laughed. “I thought you didn’t like Lady Gaga.”  
“And I don’t.” I shrugged. “But I like this song. Come here!”  
I offered Gina my hand but she denied it with a shook of her head while laughing out loud at my dancing over the table. I was mimicking Lady Gaga’s dance moves awkwardly over the table, singing to her, when Gina suddenly stopped laughing and looked pretty serious. I turned to see what she was staring at, and saw Hudson leaned on the doorframe, crossed arms and a skeptical gaze.   
“You are doing such a lame imitation of Lady Gaga.” He raised an eyebrow.   
I frowned and placed my hands over my waist, resting them there and staring at him. Hudson is the biggest fan of Lady Gaga (and also Beyoncé, of course) so for him, what I was doing is an insult. But the normal Hudson, the not mad one, always laughs at what I do and mess around with me, so I decided to tease him. I jump off the table and started to walk towards him while dancing and singing to him.  
 _“You taste like whiskey when you kiss me, oh.”_ I sang, pulling him closer to me and grinding my hips against his. I pecked his lips and I could feel he was holding back a laugh. It’s cool having a gay friend, you can do that stuff to him and he won’t feel attracted to you. _“I’ll give anything again to be your baby doll.”_  
“Can you please stop being so slutty?” He asked, grinning. “You seem like a Coyote Ugly girl.”  
It’s funny how Hudson always refers girls’ films when he compares things.   
_“Sit back on the couch where we made love for the first time.”_  
“ _You and I_ never made love.” He pointed out.   
_“Yeah, something about, baby, you and I.”_ I sang while laughing, he was starting to follow suit.   
“You are so drunk, Jade…” He giggled, shaking his head.   
I kept dancing to him just the way he hates, grinding my ass to his crotch smoothly and tickling his mouth and cheeks with my hair, my hand stuck on it, grabbing some locks of it. I guess if he was a normal guy he would like it, but Hudson believes that girls have to be ladies.   
_“Something, something about my cool Nebraska guy…”_  
“I am not even from Nebraska!”  
I groaned and stepped away from him, staring at him with crossed arms and raised eyebrows.   
“Oh, please, just forgive me.” I sighed then, smiling at him and blinking a few times. I know his heart melts with that. “I miss you, Hudson. I need my two best friends now more than anything, come on… I was always there when you needed me! And you need to admit we have fun together…”   
He grinned and took a deep breath. He watched me shot him puppy eyes and a sad smile for a while before slowly smiling.   
“Remember when we acted like you were my girlfriend so my dad would forgive me for being gay?” I smiled, how could I forget that? “We had to almost snog in front of him and we grinned after kissing, so he noticed and started to yell at both of us. It was so much fun though my dad hates me even more after that.”  
“He can’t see me since then.”   
We both laughed and then stared at each other awkwardly, him frowning and me smiling shyly.   
“Come on, hug or something.” Gina groaned.   
And that’s what we did. Hudson surrounded me with his thin but strong arms, carefully dressed with a black jersey, and pulled me as close as he could.   
“But tell me we won’t have to snog in front of Harry to make him jealous.” He joked.  
“No, Hudson, we won’t.” I laughed.  
I smiled against his chest; at least I fixed something today.


	15. Chapter 15

I guess it’s time to take your jacket when October starts. I really like this month; it’s a beautiful one. It’s also sad, though. Autumn starts, the leaves fell. It starts to rain, the coldness comes back. You feel nostalgic, but nostalgia is a beautiful feeling. You miss something you lost, and most of the time you don’t know what you lost. It’s beautiful not to know what you lost, but it’s also oppressive. October is a cruel month, a month to write about.  
I don’t know if it’s the month or maybe it’s this song (Sail by Awolnation) what inspires me this feeling, what makes me miss things I want back. I miss his arms around me, his lips pressed to mine in a cold night. I miss his warm breath and his hair fastened to his forehead with sweat. I miss messy sheets and low moans.   
But I also miss soft words whispered in my ear and morning pecks, stupid conversations and long walks, I miss watching films with him and I miss the tickles, the gifts, the flowers, the secrets…I miss those things I never had. And I never had them because I didn’t let him, I am more than sure.   
I woke up today dreaming that he was lying next to me, and stayed there thinking what do those eyes have. I can’t stop thinking about what he said, or tried to say.   
_“But, Jade, I am not a boy anymore, I do lo…”_  
It’s been two weeks since that. Not even a message, not a phone call, he never appeared at Lush, University or my house. I am going crazy, it’s horrible how bad I need him. I never needed a person who wasn’t my mum and only when I was a little kid, when I turned 10 I could do everything by myself. And I can’t believe I need him, I can’t believe I need Harry Styles, but I do. I had him in my bed for God knows how many nights, and I never appreciated it.   
Then, there’s _the Garret problem_. We had sex again, and again, and again… But he doesn’t even stay at night. He leaves after we are finished; he takes his jacket and whispers a low ‘goodbye’. I can tell he feels guilty, and it’s not only because he is my teacher. I think he has someone else in his mind, I think he’s cheating on someone. I never ask him, I don’t mind either.   
But today I did something. After taking a shower this morning, I phoned Harry. One ring, two rings, three rings…Voicemail.   
_Hello, this is Harry. Leave your message after the BEEP please.  
BEEEEEEEEEEP. _  
“Ehm, Harry…This is me.” I coughed, feeling uncomfortable. “I…I was wondering if we could, you know, meet sometime? I need to talk to you and…Please, call me back. Or don’t, whatever. You can also ignore this message, I kind of deserve it.” I paused and shut my eyes hard. “Bye.”  
I hung up the phone and threw it to my sofa with a groan, causing Marshall to meow and run away. I sighed and let myself fall on the sofa, then buried my face in my hands, letting out a soft sob.   
“Fucking hell.” I cursed. “You are screwed, Jade.”  
But that was when I felt my phone buzz. I looked at the screen and saw Harry’s name on it. My heart started to race and I had to take a deep breath before answering with shaking hands.   
I am becoming a teenager again.   
“Yeah?” I said with trembling voice.  
“You are Jade, right?” It wasn’t Harry’s voice. That guy had a different accent, probably Irish. “Harry told us to not answer your phone calls, but that’s stupid, he spent the last two weeks waiting for your call, he never leaves the phone alone. But now he’s at the shower, and I saw your missed call and (I’m sorry) I heard your voice message.” He talked so fast and had such a strong accent it was hard to understand. “I’m not sure what you did to him, but we are tired of this Harry. So please, meet him and talk to him and give us back our old Harry, because this one is an annoying crybaby.”   
“But…” I tried to speak, but he cut me off.  
“Harry has always been a crybaby to be honest, but not like this…” He was almost talking to himself. Then, I heard him take a deep breath. “But we don’t have much time! I’ll tell you an address and you go there tomorrow at 6PM, ok? Do you have paper and pen? Come on, Jade!”  
“Yes, yes, yes, wait…” I took a post-it and a pencil and he told me the address. It was a rehearsals studio in Oxford Street.   
“Great, so you go there and tell whoever that is at the door that I told you to come, ok? Anyway, if they don’t believe you I’ll be around checking if you arrived, huh?” All I could do was nod. “Oh, God, he’s back. I am a dead man. Remember, Jade, at 6PM!”  
He was about to hang up the phone, but I stopped him. His breathing increased.   
“What? What, what, what, what?”  
“What’s your name?”   
“Niall.” He replied and I noticed he was smiling. “My name’s Niall.”  
“Alright.” I was also smiling from ear to ear. “Thank you, Niall.”  
“See you, baby.”  
I sat again on the sofa and couldn’t avoid a laugh. I slapped my own forehead with my hand and bit my lower lip, shaking my head.   
I am seeing him tomorrow.


	16. Chapter 16

I decided to wear tight jeans and boots plus an also tight tee with a big neckline. I picked my favorite bra (it makes my boobs look really pretty) and a necklace that catches the attention there, in case my boobs don’t. I wanted to get him back and boobs always help, don’t them? I had to take a coat, though, it was freezing this afternoon.   
I was there at 5:55PM and I didn’t have problems to get in, Niall already told security that I was coming. Anyway, he was waiting for me at the hall, scrolling down his phone.   
“Jade, right?” He screamed in a whisper, then hugged me and kissed both of my cheeks. “I was nervous, for a moment I thought you weren’t coming.”  
I wonder when isn’t Niall nervous. He drove me to another room, and there were three other guys, all of them sitting in the same couch though there was a free one in front of them. I already knew Zayn, the tanned, sexy one. Niall was a bit taller than me and he was all smiles and laughs, I also noticed that he is always playing with his hair and he has some ticks when he talks. He is really sweet and funny, though. But there were two of them I didn’t know: Liam and Louis. Liam is very polite, such a gentleman, but I also found him childish (in a good way). Louis was the first one to get up and ‘welcome’ me.   
They were quickly all around me, talking at the same time with each other and asking me questions. They were four, but they seemed forty.   
“Where is he?” I finally asked, and they smirked at the same time.   
“He’s recording the studio version of Torn for our next album.” Liam explained to me. “Come with me.”  
I followed Liam through a corridor, and we ended up on a room with a table full of buttons and connections, a big glass wall separating that room from the one where Harry was. I felt a punch in my stomach when I saw him, and Liam smiled to me. He was wearing big headphones and he his eyes were closed, I stared at him as he sang with no sound for me. I groaned, I _needed_ to hear him. And as if Liam heard my thoughts, he asked:  
“Do you want to hear him?” I nodded shyly and he whispered something to the woman sitting on the chair in front of the table. She touched some buttons and rolled some little wheels before giving me her headphones and telling me to sit down where she was.   
When I wore the headphones my lungs ran out of air. I have never heard Harry singing before, I never watched a video of them at a concert or simply singing. It was the first time ever I heard Harry Styles singing. It was only his voice, not even an acoustic guitar accompanying it. It felt like he was singing for me.   
_I'm all out of faith  
This is how I feel  
I’m cold and I am shamed  
Lying broken on the floor_  
Harry’s voice is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. I know now why I didn’t want to hear him singing; unconsciously I knew I could fall just for his voice. And the most he sang, the most I fell for him. I watched his face as he sang, his lips caressing the words as they fell out from his mouth, his eyes closed hard in a grin of what seemed pain, or maybe just effort. His hand rested over the top of his stomach. The husky voice that used to say my name like it was his favorite word in the world was now melodic, still deep and dark but melodic. Beautiful.  
 _You’re a little late  
I’m already torn…_  
He opened his eyes and entered a hand in his pocket, taking his phone and checking it. He finished singing and his expression was serious, bored. My heart jumped, I thought he was going to look at me, but he kept staring at his phone.   
“I’ll let Zayn finish that, just like in The X Factor.” Harry said, thinking I was the woman who controls the table. “Do I need to sing it again?”  
I raised my eyes to look at Liam, questioning him if Harry could hear me. He nodded.  
“Yes.” I replied.   
“But come on, Lydia, I already did it twice…” He looked at _Lydia_ to protest, but saw me instead of her. His mouth opened to say something, but he didn’t say a thing. He just removed his headphones from his ears and stared at me while frowning.  
“For me?” I tried to smile.   
But Harry didn’t sing it again for me; he placed the headphones over a stool and then left the room. I chuckled, shaking my head. I deserved it.   
“I should leave too.” I said to Liam, getting up.  
“No, no, hey, Jade.” He grabbed both of my shoulders. “Don’t go anywhere. Stay here, please, me and the boys will talk to him, ok?”  
I nodded while swallowing, but my throat was dry. Liam left me there, sitting on the chair, but then I heard a lot of noises in the adjoining room, whispers, footsteps, something falling…laughs. I pressed my ear to the door and heard Niall’s accent.  
“So you left her there? Without saying anything?” He said. “And I thought you were the man of the band…”  
“Shut up.” Harry’s voice was huskier than ever. It was also really close; I could feel the vibrations of it, so I guessed he was sitting on the floor with his back against the door.  
“But, Harry, come on, have you seen her?” I am not sure who was that, maybe Zayn, he also has a peculiar accent. “She looks _so_ sad, defeated. When I first met her she was much happier.”  
“Maybe she’s just tired. She is always tired.” Harry’s words were cruel, the indifferent tone of his voice made my throat dry again. Then, he spoke again in a low voice. “Tired of me…”  
“That’s so not true, Harry…” I whispered knowing he couldn’t hear me, my ear still pressed against the door.  
“If you don’t go to talk to her I’ll do it, and you know how bad I am when it comes about talking to girls.” Someone joked, and I bet it was Louis. “Don’t be stupid, Harry, she wore her hottest clothes just to come and see you.”  
I heard the vibrations of his laugh against the door, and I blushed. Apparently all of them noticed.   
“The council of elders just spoke. Go and get her.”  
“She’s late.” Harry said. “I am over her, and I bet she’s over me as well.”   
I felt Harry getting up from the floor and all of them started to talk at the same time. I was there, opened mouth, wide eyes. My heart stopped for a second to start racing the following one.   
I still don’t know how or why, but that made me open the door and face him.  
“Do you actually think that if I were over you I would be here?” I said. “Are you that stupid?”  
All of the eyes were focused on me. The boys coughed uncomfortably and looked at each other, then left the room one by one with an excuse. Harry was standing in front of me with a proud look on his eyes, yet hurt. He was wearing a beige beanie, white converse, black jeans and a large t-shirt with a red heart in its pocket. You could read a word printed onto it, _LOVER._  
“I’m here, Harry.” I tried to smile, shrugging. “I just…I needed to see you again.”  
“Why?” He asked.   
“Because I miss you.”   
“And why now, after three weeks?” He sat on a table and removed his beanie.   
The truth is that I wasn’t sure.  
“It’s really hard to ignore you, Harry.” I started. “I’m not sure if you are everywhere or if it’s me, if I’m going crazy, but I go out for a walk and I see posters, videos in each music shop, girls talking about you in the street…Then, I come home and I want to relax for a while and watch TV… but you are also there!” I laughed, shaking my head. “It’s impossible to act like I never knew you, and believe me… During these three weeks I wished I never saw your face.”  
“You didn’t answer my question, Jade.” He insisted. “Why now?”  
Staring at him a lot of things came to my mind, but not the answer to that question. _Why now, Jade, why now? Why not after he left? Why didn’t you tell him that he was right, that you were just scared? That you are falling for him like teenagers do?_ I wanted to come closer to him, just kiss him and lose my fingers into his hair, I just wanted him to hug me and press his lips against mine, tell me that he feels the same way.   
And that was the answer. I needed to _know._  
“I am not scared anymore, Harry.” I whispered, trying to control myself from the tears that were menacing. “And now I need to know if I should try or just leave. I want to clear up things so I can continue with my normal life or…let myself go with you. But give me an answer, because I don’t know what should I hang on.”  
“That is difficult, Jade.” Harry said softly.  
“No, it’s not.” I shook my head repeatedly. “Do you want me to disappear, Harry?”   
“No, Jade, of course not, but whenever I imagine you with that man…touching you, tasting you, feeling you.” His face turned into a grin of anger. “And I know you are still sleeping with him. You are laughing at me, Jade.”  
I didn’t say anything, he was right. But Garret doesn’t mean anything to me, Harry does. I should have told him that I love him, I should have kissed him and said sorry, I should have done a lot of things…But instead of that, I nodded and left the room. Harry didn’t follow me; he stayed sitting there on the table as I walked away, the four boys on the sofa calling my name until I opened the front door, but none of them was Harry.   
“It’s raining!” Some of them tried to make me stay.   
It was already dark when I started to walk towards Garret’s house. Harry said he didn’t want me to disappear, but apparently he didn’t want to be with me either. I was a little late, and he was over me. It was raining like it was The Apocalypses, of course. That is a good thing, though; nobody notices teardrops in the rain. I felt eyes focused on me as I walked down the street, people watching me through the glass of a pub or the window of their warm house, people with umbrellas walking in the opposite direction. I could hear what they were thinking, _‘Poor girl, someone should lend her an umbrella.’_  
When I arrived Garret’s house I rang the bell with shaking hands for the cold but also the excitement. Probably Garret didn’t want me to be there, but I needed someone. I needed to feel some warmness around my body, I needed someone to make me feel good, desired, loved. But it surprised me, someone else opened the door. A woman.   
“Hello?” The woman looked at me with surprised eyes; probably I had the worst look ever. Wet clothes, smeared mascara, red eyes from the tears, shivering body. “Who are you?”  
“He…Hello. I am Jade.” I stuttered. “Is…is Garret here?”  
In that moment Garret popped from behind of the woman, frowning. When he saw me, his jaw dropped.   
“Jade! What are you doing here?” He was pretty nervous.   
“Who is she, Garret?” The woman asked. Garret stared at both of us.  
“She is Jade, one of my students.” He introduced me. “Jade, this is Hannah. My wife.”  
 _What-the-fuck._


	17. Chapter 17

Garret and Hannah have been married for 5 years now, but they were a couple since they were in high school. They met there, then went to university together, they found jobs in the same city and moved together. They spent a half of their lives together, _literally._  
“You are soaking, sweetheart!” Hannah grabbed me by my waist and shoulder and dragged me into her house. “Nobody goes out on October without an umbrella.”  
Garret was petrified, his wife taking off my coat as we stared into each other’s eyes with warn. So that was why Garret seemed so worried, not because I am his student…He is married.   
“I’ll lend you some of my clothes, you’ll catch a cold.” Hannah smiled to me. “We’ll dry your clothes, ok?”  
“No, she doesn’t need your clothes Hannah, I bet she is leaving right now.” That bothered me.  
“No, actually I was going to ask you two if I could stay for a while, until the rain stops.” I acted my best innocent expression and Garret shot me a killer glance.   
The situation was even funny.  
“Of course you can.” Hannah smiled again. “I’ll leave you some clothes in our bedroom while you take a warm shower, you are shaking.”  
I followed Hannah to their bedroom and she showed me the shower with all its stuff. She was a piece of heaven, and it made me feel really guilty. She was a very attractive woman, long blonde hair falling over his shoulders and breasts drawing beautiful waves, round green eyes and such a good body.   
Damn, she was hotter than me.   
That also made my ego increase, Garret had a beautiful woman into his bed every night but he decided to slide into mine too.   
I rolled a towel around my body and got out from the bathroom, playing with my wet hair. The bathroom was into Garret’s bedroom, and what did I see when I came into?  
“What are you doing here?” Garret asked.  
“Where’s Hannah?”  
“She’s out having dinner with her friends.” He explained. “Why are you here, Jade?”  
I looked at him and sighed.   
“I was going back home and it started raining. I knew your house was here…”  
“And why were you crying?” He cut me off.  
“I…I had a fight with someone.” Garret was going to ask again, but I didn’t let him. “Anyway, it should be me who asks the questions. Can you explain me why didn’t you tell me that you are fucking married?”  
Garret sat on the edge of the bed and stared at me, checking my whole body. I tightened the towel around my chest, feeling exposed.   
“I knew you would say no to me if I told you.”  
“And how do you think I feel now, Garret?” I frowned. “I come to your house and your _wife_ opens the door! What you were doing with me is more than wrong…Oh, and it doesn’t feel good to know I am _the other one._ ”  
“I always was _the other on_ e anyway, right?” That caught me out of guard, and he noticed. “Your little famous boy…”  
“Did you tell someone?” I asked immediately, squinting.  
“No, and I won’t. But you won’t tell about _this_ to anybody either, will you?”  
I shook my head slowly and sat next to him, my eyes focused on some point and my hand grabbing the towel on my chest. I could feel Garret’s eyes watching me, and he placed a lock of my wait hair behind my ear.  
“Can I ask you something, Garret?” I murmured. He nodded. “Why did you do it? You…you usually look guilty when you leave my house.”  
He took his time before answering.   
“I guess I was tired of being with the same girl. I’ve been with her for 15 years, Jade.”  
“That’s not an excuse.”   
He didn’t say anything, he stayed there staring at my face and breathing heavily.   
“Can I ask something to you too?” He said then. I nodded just like he did. “Do you feel something for me, Jade?”  
I moved my head to look at him while frowning. That was a very hard question. He was always nice and polite to me; his intelligence was also a plus. I stared at his face, his messy blonde hair and his stubble, his black glasses, his green eyes. His eyes… green eyes. Just like Harry’s.   
“No.” I replied, and I knew it was true. “You?”  
He looked hurt. His eyes became smaller and he frowned, clenching his jaws. Suddenly, he crashed his lips against mines into a desperate kiss, a needy kiss. He made me lean down onto the bed and he crawled over me, keeping my wrists over my head. He was kissing me hard over the bed he slept with his wife, and I knew it was wrong, but his kisses made me come back to life, made the cold go away and the empty space in the pit of my stomach close a bit. The heat of my body was increasing, but I was still gelid.   
“I don’t know, Jade.” Garret replied between kisses. “I don’t know, fucking hell…” He said that in between murmurs, almost for himself. I frowned.   
He undid the little knot I did with the towel around my body and left me completely naked, my pale skin pulling him closer for protection and warmness. He started to trail kisses down my neck to my breasts, sucking on them and making me shut my eyes.   
“But your young body drives me crazy.” He finished in a murmur, stroking up and down my waist.   
He was turning me on, after all that was why I went to his house, I wanted that. But Harry’s image was playing tricks in my mind, don’t letting me disconnect and just _feel_.   
He said he was over me, didn’t he?   
I looked through the window and saw the rain falling, then glanced at my still wet clothes and at Hannah’s over the edge of the bed. When Garret’s kisses reached my center I placed my hands over his head, pulling him away. He raised his eyes to look at him and I shook my head slowly, his eyes understanding what I meant.  
“I can’t do this.” I murmured, taking my clothes from the heater and wearing them. They were a bit drier, but still wet. “I’ll see you soon.”  
He watched me as I put on my clothes again, and he didn’t say a single thing not even when I said bye to him, closing the door behind me. I rested my back on it for a few seconds and took a deep breath, preventing the sob that was fighting to come out.  
I left Garret’s house and waited on the bus stop for 15 minutes. The driver looked at me with raised eyebrows, but he let me in and drove to the stop me next to my house. When the bus stopped I ran home into the rain to find a tall figure waiting in front of my door. I immediately recognized him, and he immediately recognized me.   
“Jade.” Harry whispered, covering me with his umbrella. “You are soaking, did you walk home?”  
“What are you doing here, Harry?”  
We were standing really close, the rain hitting hard over the umbrella.   
“It…it was raining a lot and…I…don’t know.” He stuttered. “I drove here. I was worried about you.”  
I glanced to my left and saw a black Audi parked next to my house. Then, raised my eyes to look again at him. I grinned.  
“Were you?” I asked, and he nodded.   
I didn’t think twice, I wrapped my arms around his waist, under his coat, and hugged him tight, my clothes wetting his, but none of us cared. His body was holding mine, his chin resting over the top of my head as one of his hands caressed my wet hair. I buried my head on his chest, imbibing myself with his warm smell.   
“I am so sorry, Harry.” I murmured, shutting my eyes hard.   
“Sh.” He shushed me, removing his arms to cup my cheeks with both of his hands and leaving a soft peck over my lips, closing his eyes.   
When he removed his lips from mine I stared at his eyes for a second and bit my lower lip, pulling him back to my lips roughly by holding his neck, making him giggle through the kiss and drop the umbrella, the rain soaking us. I immediately cut off the kiss and hit him.  
“Harry, what the fuck!” I cried out, protecting myself with one hand. He was cracking up. “Oh my God, you bastard!”  
I quickly opened the door of my complex and we entered the elevator, flooding its floor. Harry tried to kiss me again, but I rejected him alleging he did the most horrible thing to me. He alleged that I was already wet, and then shook his head like a dog, making the water of his curls fly to my face. I hit him again and he laughed, pulling me against the elevator and kissing me, that time I didn’t have any way out and I didn’t want it either.   
I don’t know what changed his mind, but I know he is simply perfect.  
“I think I have some extra large clothes that could fit you.” I said as we entered my flat.   
“I can stay naked, I don’t mind.” He winked.   
But I got into the bathroom and changed my clothes, drying up my hair with a towel. I watched myself in the mirror and grinned, I had my mascara under my eyes and it looked like massive shiners, my lips were a mixture of purple from the cold and red from Harry’s kisses. He likes biting down my lips.   
I opened the room of my bedroom without knocking before, not remembering Harry was there. He was also changing his clothes and he was giving me his back, completely naked, his arms over his head as he tried to take off his wet t-shirt. I suddenly blushed as he turned, he heard the noise of the door opening and I slammed it close quickly after muttering a low,  
“Oh, sorry.”  
Ten seconds later Harry opened the door with a big smirk on his lips, and I blushed even more.  
“It’s not like this is the first time you see me naked.”  
“I…I know.” I shook my head, but my heart was pounding hard. The image of his naked body was so hot. “But I was drunk or really horny and this time I didn’t expect it.”  
“You are blushing, baby.” He giggled.  
“I know, you don’t need to remind it to me.”   
He was wearing a shirt that my brother left here the last time he came to London and his own boxers; nothing else. His smirk was bigger than before and he trapped me against the wall again, pecking my cheek softly and then my lips.  
“You are cute.” He whispered, and I let out a low laugh, kissing him back.  
Harry’s smell always hypnotizes me and makes me feel almost high, like I just smoke weed. I took his hand in between mine and drove him to my bedroom, he slowly lay down on it and I climbed on top of him, never leaving his lips.   
We were slowly kissing, beautifully kissing. I started to notice every single thing he did, every single movement of his body coordinated to mine, and every shadow of his face. I loved it all.  
“I love doing this.” I whispered, resting my forehead over his.  
“Doing what?” He whispered back, his eyes smiling.  
“Kissing you.” I replied, pecking him quickly. “I could do it forever.”  
“And I would let you.”   
With that he cupped one of my cheeks in his hand and pulled me closer to him, smashing our lips together again. His other hand was stroking my back and slowly travelling down until it reached my bum, staying there for a while to go down on my naked leg later, his fingers drawing figures on it. Then, they started to tease the elastic band of my panties, getting closer to my heat. I knew what was going to happen.  
“Let’s not do it tonight.” I said, and he looked at me confused.  
“Why?” He asked.  
“Because I want to keep it like this.” I murmured, caressing his cheek. “I just want to lay next to you and stare at you, I want to talk about random things and laugh with you, Harry, because…”  
He was quietly listening to me with a hidden smile when I did the most horrible thing ever.   
“I…” I paused and took a deep breath, grinning in awkwardness. “Would it be too stupid if I said that I think I’m falling for you, Harry?”  
His raised eyebrows went down and his mouth opened slightly, his eyes going down my face and watching my mouth, his fingers caressing them but not daring to touch them, like they had electricity. I closed my eyes as I felt my heartbeat increase, regretting the fact that I confessed myself so soon without even knowing anything, and fearing that he might not feel the same. But I felt him shake his head against the pillow, and I opened my eyes again.  
“No, Jade.” He murmured, his hidden smile finally showing. “That would actually be amazing, and you know why?”  
“Why?”  
“Because I already fell for you.” He let out an amused laugh, one of his hands resting on my waist and the other one running his own hair shyly. “Hard.”  
I shook my head with an incredulous smile and bit my lower lip, leaving quick kisses all over his face. He was laughing, and when I stared into his green eyes I couldn’t believe how on Earth I got so lucky.   
“But we have a problem, Jade.” He whispered into my ear.  
“What is it?” I frowned.   
He pointed down on himself, right onto his crotch, and I turned to look at it. Harry had a bulge curling his boxers, and I laughed quite loud.   
“Jade!” He protested. “Don’t laugh!”  
“But Harry, we were only kissing…”   
“It’s been three weeks.” He frowned. “And I am a 18 years old guy.”  
“You have your hand.” I teased, and he squinted.   
“Yours is better.” He smirked making my jaw open. “What? It’s true.”  
I leaned down again to get closer to his ear, and my hand moved to his crotch, resting there and rubbing soft circles on it. I could feel him getting harder and he closed his eyes, moaning really lowly.   
“Then we should do something about it, huh?” I whispered.   
“Hell yes.” He groaned, and I kissed him roughly removing my hand and grinding my crotch to his, feeling it. “I love you, Jade.”  
I knew he didn’t expect an answer from me, that he just wanted to say it. It made me feel comfortable knowing that he wasn’t going to force me, but it also felt pretty good hearing him saying those words… Maybe it is too soon for me, but this feels like heaven.   
Is it ok to be afraid of love if you don’t understand it, if you don’t know how to keep it?


	18. Chapter 18

When I woke up this morning Harry wasn’t by my side, and I freaked out and felt the anger rush my body until I saw a pair of slippers at the end of the bed, perfectly placed next to his wrinkled t-shirt and jeans. I shook my head with a giggle; they were still wet because he didn’t hang them.   
I checked my phone and saw 10 missed calls. Three from my mum, and 7 from my sister.   
“What…?”  
I was going to phone back but I heard Harry at the kitchen talking to someone, he seemed annoyed. I frowned and took a hoodie before walking to the kitchen.   
“What do you mean they already know who is she?” He was saying, his fist slammed against the counter. “They said we are officially dating? But they don’t know a thing! Oh, shit…”  
“Harry?” I asked, placing my hand over his shoulder and making him turn around to look at me. “What’s wrong?”  
“I’ll call you later.” He hung up and grinned to me. “Apparently when I came here yesterday some paps followed me and took photos… Of us two together.”  
“Oh, well.” I murmured.  
“And since they saw us enter your flat…they know your name and everything. The pics are everywhere.” He took a deep breath. “I am sorry, Jade.”  
“No, Harry, don’t be stupid.” I smiled, pecking his lips. “It doesn’t matter, I guess. Can I see them, though?”  
He looked kind of shocked about the fact that it didn’t bother me, but it actually didn’t. It’s not like I want to be famous, but I don’t mind if people get to know that _Harry Styles_ is my boyfriend.   
Oh, wait.  
Is Harry Styles my boyfriend?  
“Well, at least I look hot.” I joked, causing him to let out a loud laugh and pull me closer to his chest, hugging me and kissing me softly. I smiled through it.   
“But will you be able to bare with the hate?” He murmured, his face buried in my hair. “Fans can be really mean sometimes… And magazines.”  
“I went to judo classes for 3 years.” I shrugged, pulling away and smiling. “I know how to defend myself.”  
He laughed again and petted my cheek, looking at me with gentle eyes, eyes full of a feeling that made me blush and look away, causing him to grab my chin to make me look back at him. My heart was pounding hard when he opened his mouth, but I didn’t let his tongue pronounce the words he wanted to.   
“Don’t say it.” I whispered, and he shook his head almost imperceptibly, grinning in slight pain. “I already know it, Harry.”   
“You will say it too someday.” He whispered back, a tiny smile in the corner of his lips. His voice was as kind as usual, yet a bit rough and hurt. “You will say _you love me_. I’m going to make you love me, Jade.”  
I hate myself for not being able to say those three words. I am here, in front of the computer, staring at my screen and trying to say it in a loud voice, but I can’t even say it in my mind. Does that mean I don’t actually love him? Because, the truth is, I really want to say it. I want to scream it and tell everybody I am with him, but I just can’t.   
We were steadily staring at each other, his eyes caressing my skin and his hand playing with my hair. I would lie if I said in that moment I didn’t feel like I _loved_ Harry more than anything in this world. And it was annoying me.  
“I hate you so much.” I murmured, smiling.   
“Well, that is a beginning.” He joked, and I pushed him gently. “But don’t hit me, you bastard…” He pulled me closer and rested his forehead over mine.   
“You deserve it.” I stuck my tongue out.   
“Why!” He laughed, grabbing my forearms.   
_Because you are fucking with my mind, you are driving me crazy and you are messing with my life. Oh, and having fun while doing it._  
I was wondering if I should actually say it or not when my phone started to buzz. I slowly pulled away like I was getting out of a trance and checked the screen. It was my sister; I completely forgot about her.   
“Cathleen?” I asked. “What happens?”  
“JADE OH MY GOD FINALLY.” She screamed, and I pulled the phone away from my ear. Harry was watching me with an amused smile. “GO TO SKYPE RIGHT NOW IT’S URGENT.”   
“But Cathie, it’s not the right moment…” I tried to say, but she cut me off.  
“It is, J, it fucking is!!”  
“Watch that mouth, you are just 16!” I teased her, and I heard her groaning.  
“Open your fucking computer and go to Skype you bitch.” She said before hanging up the phone.  
“Who was it?” Harry asked.  
“My sister.” I explained to him. “She wants to Skype with me, apparently it’s pretty urgent. You don’t need to show, just… Hide somewhere behind the computer.”  
I opened my laptop and logged onto Skype; Cathleen was calling me before I could even sit on the kitchen chair. Harry was sitting in front of me and looking at me steadily as I answered the video call. A 16 years old girl that could be me 4 years ago popped in the screen, her hair on a bun and her mascara all over her eyes. She seemed tired and her eyes were a bit red.  
“How much alcohol did you drink last night, huh?” I asked.  
“Tons.” She replied, making me smile. “But it doesn’t matter right now.”  
“So what does matter?”   
With that she showed me a typical teenagers magazine and pointed at some point on the cover. Then she showed me another one, and another one, and another one… Harry and I were hugging on that one, kissing on that other one, getting into my flat, simply staring at each other…  
I blushed and looked at Harry for a second, who was creeping on his own mobile phone without noticing anything.   
“WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME.” Cathleen yelled, throwing the magazines behind her. Harry opened his eyes wide and looked at me, giggling. “I AM YOUR SISTER I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW YOU ARE DATING HARRY FUCKING STYLES AKA THE HOTTEST GUY ON EARTH.”  
Harry laughed louder now, and then covered his mouth with one hand. My sister didn’t hear it anyway, she was too busy screaming.  
“You will regret saying that.” I smiled, holding back my laughter.   
“Why would I regret saying it, duh?” She squinted. “He is a fucking sexgod and _you_ are having _sex_ with him. Because you are, right?”  
“Cathleen!” I shouted, blushing a bit yet smiling. I looked at Harry, who was cracking up in the chair, still covering his mouth.  
“What!” She shouted too. “You are sleeping with a member from One Direction, the boy band of the moment and, I remind you, ALSO one of my favorite bands, and you don’t tell me? I am mad at you, Jade, really mad. At least you should tell me how long is he.”  
This time Harry couldn’t hold back a very loud laughter and Cathleen heard him. She frowned.  
“What was that? Are you with someone?”  
“Well, Cath, actually I am with…”  
Before I could even finish the sentence Harry was next to me, waving to the camera. Cathleen’s face went from white to red through something I can’t surely say if it was purple or dark blue. She swallowed and closed her eyes hard to open them wide a second later.  
“Hello, Cathleen.” Harry smiled.  
“Hello…Ha…Oh my God.”   
Cathleen covered her eyes and laughed, causing both of us burst into laughter too.  
“I am really sorry you had to hear that.” She apologized. “I…I am not like this usually, I promise.”  
“It’s ok, baby.” Harry said, and it made Cathleen blush so much she noticed we noticed so she blushed even more. I swear. “I have heard worse things.”  
Cathleen opened her mouth and stayed there awkwardly, not sure if she should say it. Harry didn’t see it, but a sister does.  
“Shoot it.” I frowned.  
“You should definitely come to Brighton, Jade!” She cried out, almost begging. “And you too…Harry.”  
We looked at each other for a couple of seconds and then I grinned, looking away. Harry was smiling.   
“I am not sure, Cathleen.” I shook my head, feeling the heat burning in my face as Harry held my hand. “We are busy and…”  
“I’m not really busy.” Harry shrugged. “And I thought you had a free weekend next week…”  
“Please, please, please, please.”   
I stared at my sister on the screen with her puppy eyes sparkling, and at Harry with his dimples showing.   
But isn’t it too soon? I actually had thought about going to Brighton next weekend to see my brother and his daughter, also my parents and of course my sister, but… I thought about going on my own, not with _him_. Harry having dinner with my family…   
Scary.   
“I’ll think about it, Leen.” I murmured, not really sure.   
“You know how much I hate it when you call me Leen.”  
“Yes, that’s why I do it.”  
Harry stayed at home to have lunch, and then grabbed his clothes and left with a soft kiss. I asked him if he actually wanted to come to my house at Brighton while we were cuddling on the sofa.  
“Well, your sister is a fan and she would be really happy.” He said, leaving pecks all over my face. “And I would _love_ to spend an entire weekend with you.”  
Yeah. Me too, Harry.


	19. Chapter 19

So we are finally going to Brighton this weekend, and it seems like the only one who isn’t excited is me. Even my cat is excited, a weekend without me. Woohoo.   
It is not like I don’t want to go there to see my family, or either I am ashamed of Harry… but it’s scary. Usually, the one who doesn’t want to meet the family is the guy, right?   
So tomorrow we are leaving before lunch and we are coming back on Sunday at night.   
This morning I had to go to Uni, and I had to hand in an essay for Garret’s subject. Guess what happened.   
“You didn’t come to my class this morning.” He pointed out when I entered his office. “Why?”  
“I was at the library.” I simply answered, sitting on the chair in front of him with the papers in my hands. He didn’t look at me.   
“Yes, I saw you there. What you were doing?”  
“Studying.” I frowned. “I have an exam in 15 minutes and I had to revise. I am sorry, I won’t miss any other class.”  
“I thought you were kind of…running away from me?” He did look at me this time, through his glasses. His voice and his glance bothered me; he was treating me like teachers do to little kids when they do something bad.  
“I wasn’t. I don’t run away from my problems.”  
He raised both of his eyebrows and got up, looking at me from another angle that made him look bigger. He was trying to do everything to make me feel stupid and too young next to him.   
“So am I a problem for you?”   
His glasses were placed in the middle of his nose, his olive eyes accusing me. I got up and stood in front of him at his same height, piercing him with a glance.   
“Here you have your essay, Garret.” I put it over his table and turned around, but he spoke.  
“I am ‘ _professor’_ for you.”  
I stepped short and swallowed. Then, I turned around to face him.  
“Is it going to be like this?” I asked.  
“Like what?”  
“Like you treating me like a complete stranger.” I said, walking towards him and placing my hands over his table, my face close to his. “Treating me like all of this was my fault. Because, I remind you, it’s all yours.”  
“Shut up.” He spat. “Leave.”  
“No.” I replied, and I didn’t move a single muscle. “I am not a stupid child, Garret. And I won’t let you treat me like this.”  
“Leave!” He yelled this time.   
I let out a low chuckle and shook my head, staring at him for a little while before leaving the room.   
My exam went awful and everything I could think about all day was how immature Garret was to me, and how much I wanted to enter his office again and say a couple of things to him.   
I was going to have lunch with Hudson after University, and he noticed my bad mood.   
“Hey, Jade, what is wrong?” He asked.   
I looked at my best friend and wondered if I should tell him or not. His usual big smile was showing even in that moment, his bright blue eyes staring at me peacefully, waiting for an answer.   
I had to tell him. Everything.  
“…And now I don’t know what to do.” I said as I bit chip; I was still talking when we stopped for lunch. “Should I tell him everything about Garret or should I shut my fucking mouth up? Because I look at him and, Hudson, I feel dizzy.”  
“Yeah, yeah, he is really hot…” He nodded. “I would have sex with him.”  
“It’s not only that anymore, Hudson…” I sighed. “I think I feel something for him.”  
“But he already told you he loves you, didn’t he?” Hudson was frowning, listening to me yet a bit confused. “What’s the problem then?”  
“Yes! Yes he did, and that’s the problem!” I couldn’t stop moving my leg up and down nervously. “I…I never felt something like this for anybody, I think. I don’t think I am in love with him anyway, but it’s like… Like, I could just stare at him for hours…Lay next to him and stare at his curls and his dimples and his eyes and his hands and listen to his voice and, Jesus, the way he sings, I am addicted to his voice and the way he looks at me and how good my name sounds in his mouth and…”  
“Hey, hey, baby, slow down.” Hudson laughed. “And you say you are not in love with him? You have a big, big problem right here, lady.”  
I raised my eyes from my dish to look at him and grinned in fear. He just said what I was scared about.  
“Do you think?” I asked. He nodded. “And what should I do?”  
“Tell him.”  
“Hell no!”  
“But why not!” He growled. “He’s dying to hear it.”  
“But can’t I just…”  
“Why are you so scared?” He cut me off, looking serious. “What stops you?”  
 _What stops me_ has a story behind it.   
I know I always say I never loved any other boy before, but that is a lie. I did love someone before Harry appeared in my life with no shirt and a massive…Well, I did love someone. He was 20 and I was 14; he was a friend of my brother. My brother tends to make friends with younger people because he is such a little kid; he was 2 years older than my crush. I was in love with him until I had 16 years, maybe 17. I know it is lame, but he was so mature and so beautiful and he was so nice to me…  
I remember I told him about it at my 16th birthday party. I have always been really close to my brother though he is 7 years older than me, so I was also quite close to this guy too since he was his best friends. Stephen.   
I was throwing a party at my house, I was excited because my parents allowed me to do it but only with one condition: my brother had to be at home. And my brother didn’t go anywhere without Stephen, so both of them were ‘taking care of us’. Of course, my brother let us drink alcohol and kind of destroy my house.  
So, when I was drunk enough to come closer to him, I took a deep breath and did it. I still get goose bumps when I think about it.   
_“I know you are barely 16 and I am 21, and I also know you are my best friend’s little sister.” I remember he whispered into my ear. “But you are the hottest, nicest and cutest 16 years old I have ever seen.”_  
After that we locked the door of my room and let the party continue without us, or maybe we started our private party, it depends on how you look at it. Don’t judge me, please. Almost of my friends weren’t virgins anymore and I was crazy for him. And 20 years old guys don’t look for the same as teenagers, do they?  
The next morning I told him I loved him, and he opened his eyes wide.   
_“I think you didn’t get my message.” He chuckled and caressed my cheek like you do to children. “I always found you sweet and fit, but just that. I am not going to date a little kid. I am sorry, Jade.”_  
That actually broke my heart. You know, he was my first. Fuck _and_ kiss.   
I think my brother and Stephen’s friendship ended there. I was sad that it was my fault, but my brother almost kicked out from my house when he saw me crying and he finally made me tell him everything.   
That is also one of my fears of going to Brighton, seeing him.   
I told Hudson all of this and he listened to me quietly. Then, he laughed.  
“What! Don’t you laugh at my teenager years!”  
“I am sorry, Jade, but that’s a stupid excuse.” He shrugged. “If you love Harry you should go for it. It’s been 4 years since then, you grew up and Harry won’t do that to you. I would be more worried you can do it to him.”  
“Hey, I am not such a bitch…”  
Hudson stayed in silence for a while, thinking. I was waiting for his last advice.  
“Try to enjoy this weekend as much as you can, and clear up all your feelings during it.” He simply said. “Oh, and did you always had such a thing for older guys?”  
Yes, I always had it. But Harry is special.


	20. Chapter 20

I spent this whole morning walking from one side of the house to another, pretending I was picking up my stuff and cleaning up the house but I wasn’t. The truth is that I was so nervous I couldn’t even think straight. I got up at 8AM and everything was done at 10AM, so I had two hours left to go crazy. I sent tons of messages to Harry on Whatsapp, and he only replied when he was in front of my house.   
He helped me with my luggage and opened the door car for me.  
“I thought we were going just for one weekend.” He laughed when he lifted my luggage, his incredible arms tensing and showing his muscles.   
“Well…I don’t know what’s the weather like there, and…” I was a bit distracted by his arms.   
As Harry drove I told him everything about my family and my hometown. I have two siblings: Cathleen (16 years old) and Edward -Ed or Eddie- (27 years old). Eddie is married to a woman called Samantha (I don’t know her age but she’s beautiful) and they just had a daughter, her name is Joss (I think she’s two months old, awww). My grandparents also live there, Lydia and John, they are my mum’s parents. My parents’ house and my grandparents’ house are near to each other, so when I’m there I am always crossing the street from one house to another. My brother lives a bit further, tho, you have to take the car.   
About the place, it’s literally next to the beach, so during Autumn-Winter there’s nobody there but the neighbours and us. I told him not to worry about people or fans, nobody was going to bother us. When I said that, he smiled warmly and pulled me closer to kiss me, making the car toss and causing me to cry out.   
“It’s here.” I murmured, staring at my house through the foggy window.   
When I opened the door a cold wind hit me; the sea always carries gelid breezes. I closed the car door and looked for Harry with my eyes, finding him in front of the house door with a little, excited smile on his lips.  
“Come on, I am freezing.” He urged me.   
I took a deep breath before ringing the bell, the door opening in the same second just like someone was waiting at the other side. It was my sister, and she probably was.   
“Ah!” She cried out when she saw us. Harry waved to her. “Ah!”  
It didn’t surprise me at all that she hugged Harry before me, smiling wide and screaming lowly in excitement. Harry was radiant, you could see his fans are such an important thing to him.   
“I can’t believe it.” She cried out while jumping on Harry again. “How did you get to date _thi_ s?”  
“I’m happy to see you too, Cath.” I shook my head. “Where are mum and dad?”  
“They’re still working.” She replied, and a naughty smile appeared on her lips. “I skipped school today, I should be in Biology class right now.”   
Harry laughed and I frowned, leaving my bag on the floor.  
“Well, I can’t get mad at you.” I finally said. “I was always skipping school when I was your age. What about mum and dad?”  
“They allowed me to stay here.” She winked an eye.  
I looked around me and smiled; I have missed this place. The hall with the two big pots in each side, the wood stairs, the living room at the right, the little kitchen and the garden that’s next to the beach behind the stairs, at the end of the hall. The smell of tasty food and warmness all the time.   
Cathleen’s phone started to ring, and she glanced at the screen to look at me later.   
“It’s Amber. Can I tell her about Harry?”  
I looked at Harry and he shrugged.  
“Well, ok.” I sighed.  
“And Mariah and Emma?” She smiled innocently. “And Grace?”  
“Not to Mariah.” I frowned. “I don’t like her, she’s a bitch.”  
“Alright, I love you!” She cried out, running upstairs to her bedroom. “I’ll be back in a minute!”  
When Harry and I were alone he smiled wide to me, pulling me closer by my waist and pecking my lips quickly. I sneaked my hands on his back jeans pockets and kissed him back.   
“You know that those girls will come here.” I said through kisses.  
“I don’t mind.” He laughed softly. “As long as we get to sleep together.”  
As if they heard us, the door opened and my dad appeared, followed by my mum. I removed my hands from his pockets and he removed his from my waist, our lips separating immediately and our faces blushing awkwardly. I coughed twice and Harry smiled politely.  
“The boy will sleep in the guests room.” My dad sentenced. “I don’t want to hear weird things at night.”  
“At least say hi to your daughter before starting to complain, Ed.” My mum growled. My dad and my brother have the same name. I am glad they didn’t decide to call me like my mum, Patsy. I always thought it was a dog name.  
“Hello, baby girl.” Dad hugged me, turning on his sweet-caring mode. I smiled and hugged him back, remembering his smell of cigarettes and cologne.   
Also my mum hugged me effusively, and my sister ran downstairs to see what was happening. When mum released me I coughed again, not sure how to introduce Harry. He noticed and did it himself, holding my hand behind our bodies. I wrapped my fingers tightly around his as he spoke.  
“I am Harry.” He said, shaking my dad’s hand with his free one. “Jade’s boyfriend.”  
My dad squinted. My sister giggled. My mum winked an eye to me.   
“So… You two are officially dating?” He asked.   
Harry’s face was calm and his smile was still as nice, but his hand tightened around mine.   
“Yes, sir.” He replied, and then laughed. “Well, at least that’s what I think. Your daughter might have other idea.”  
My mum and sister laughed, but my dad didn’t move a muscle. He was steadily looking at Harry, and I was feeling 16 years old.   
“How old are you, boy? I heard you are known worldwide.”   
“I am 18. I am in a band. One Direction, have you heard about us?”   
But my dad didn’t answer, and Harry’s face started to tense into an awkward grin.  
“Is the Range Rover outside yours, kid?” He asked then, and Harry smiled.  
“Yes, sir. I also have an Audi R8 and a Porsche 911 Sport Classic.” My dad’s mouth opened slightly. “But my favorite one is the red, vintage Jaguar. But I didn’t think it would be a good idea to drive here with it. The boot isn’t as big, and it’s better when the days are sunny since it’s convertible.” This time my dad’s jaw dropped. “You can drive it whenever you want, sir.”  
There was a silence in the room for a few seconds, only broken by my sister’s giggle. I looked at him and smiled, squeezing his hand. I couldn’t believe he got my dad so easily.   
Finally, he smiled.  
“Don’t call me sir, Harry.” He called him by his name for the first time. “I’m not so old. My name’s Ed.”  
“Alright, Ed.” Harry smiled. “Do you want to drive it now?”   
I frowned and glanced at Harry, confused.   
My dad and him? Alone? At a car?  
 _Talking about me?_  
“Of course. We have things to talk about.” He smiled back, and Harry got his keys out from his pocket. He kissed my cheek before leaving, and I shot him a killer glance. “While we’re out, why don’t you two help your mother to do something for lunch? It’s 1:30 and you must be starving. Tell your grandparents that we are here, ok, Jade? They are really excited to see you.”  
The three of us entered the kitchen and I sat on a stool, sighing. My sister and my mum started to prepare lunch as I watched them.  
“You never helped with lunch.” Cathleen stuck her tongue out. “And you never will.”  
“I don’t have cooking skills.”  
“You’ll need them when you get married.” Mum teased as she peeled a potato. “Or Harry will be starving.”  
“What!”  
My sister and her laughed quite laugh, creating a creepy image since they had knives in their hands. Both of them have always plotted against me while I was living there.   
I squinted.  
“Harry knows how to cook.” I said, causing both of them to gasp. 

Around half an hour later Harry and my dad came back, and they seemed to be pretty close already. That made me feel calmed and finally breathe; the journey wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought.  
My grandparents came home later, accompanied by Amber, Grace and Emma -Cathleen’s friends. Harry played poker with my granddad, my dad and Grace, who acts like an actual gambler and won all of them twice. As they played we watched them and talked, all of the women in the room (including my mum and my grandma) trying to flirt with Harry but only making him nervous and distracted, causing him to lose every time.   
“You have such a nice and handsome boyfriend.” My grandma said. “But he’s not good at poker. I don’t trust a man who’s not good at poker.”  
That made him laugh and complain, politely and innocently flirting with her, causing her to blush. Not even my granddad makes her blush when he talks about sex and alcohol, remembering all the ‘wild things’ they used to do together when they were young.   
Harry had all the attention; but he had so much attention I didn’t even get to talk to him alone for two minutes.   
We spent the night at the garden, next to the beach, talking about this and that. It was really cold, and Harry gave me his jacket, leaving him in a short-sleeved t-shirt. He was freezing but he didn’t dare to say anything because my dad kept talking to him, so he was more than happy when my parents said it was time to go to bed. He got up quicker than anybody, surprising me -I thought we could have some time alone before going to our respective bedrooms. Anyway, my mum said that we should go to swim in the sea during the night, alleging the water is warmer when it’s dark. I spent 18 years living here and I can assure you that’s a massive lie.   
So I entered my bed happy because the day ended and also thanking God because everybody liked Harry. But I was also feeling a bit of disappointment in my stomach; I wanted to have some time alone with Harry at my hometown, maybe go for a walk, cuddle for a while at the beach, go on a trip through the little forest of the mountains at the end of the city…  
I was about to fall asleep when I heard a weird crack in my bedroom, and shadows moving. With fear I took my phone and lighted the bedroom with it.  
“Ah, shit…” I heard Harry grumbling, taking something that sank in his naked foot as he walked on my bedroom floor. “Why do you live around mess, Jade.”  
“Harry!” I yelled in a whisper. “What are you doing here?”  
“I felt all alone in my bed.” He made a puppy face. “It was cold; I need you to warm me up.”  
I laughed softly, closing my eyes and letting my back fall on the bed again. I felt Harry sneaking into my bed and touching my legs with his gelid feet.   
“Ah, you are cold…” I protested, removing my legs so he couldn’t touch me.  
“I told you I was.” He murmured, his face lying in front of mine.   
“You shouldn’t be here.” I was murmuring too. “Did my parents hear you?”  
“Your parents are peacefully asleep and your sister is snoring at the living room with the TV and her computer on.”  
I smiled and rested my arm over his warm torso, feeling his heavy breath on it. It was dark, but I could see his green eyes eating mine through it. He slowly got closer to me, pressing his lips against mine as he stroke my back underneath my pyjama.   
“You were amazing today, Harry.” I mumbled when we broke the kiss. “To everybody. To my grandparents, my mum, my sister and her friends… Even my dad loves you now. You got them to love you faster than I did.”  
“Don’t say that.” He was caressing my cheek, half of it covered by the sheets. As I said, it was a cold, cold night. “They love you more than you know.”  
I acted like I didn’t notice how he doubted if he should say ‘they’ or ‘we’.   
“What did you talk about with my dad while you were at the car?”  
“You, basically. He asked me how did we meet, for how long have we been together, he also asked me if I am serious with all of this or if I am just playing with you…”  
“What did you answer to that?” I asked, feeling my stomach twist.   
“I said I am completely serious.” He said in a too low voice. “But I also said I am not sure if you are.”   
“What did he say?” I frowned, trying to hide the fact that it actually hurt me.   
“He said you are never sure about anything.” His eyes were somewhere else, looking at one point. “That scared me.”  
“Why?”  
But he didn’t answer. His eyes came back to me, though, deeply staring at my face. I wanted to tell him that my dad was wrong, that I am more than sure about him, but I am too much of a pussy to say it. So, instead of saying it, I did something much easier. I started to kiss his lips, softly at first, but turned into a rough kiss. I could feel Harry’s anger and fear through it, leaving me a bittersweet taste on my tongue.   
He rolled over until his body has hovering mine, his curls hanging over me.   
“He also asked me one more thing.” He said, his hands desperately trying to touch more skin than they were able to. I looked at him, waiting for the question. “He asked me if we have sex.”  
“And you said…?”  
“I said that we do, each day. More than once.”  
“Shit, Harry…” I growled, annoyed at his answer.   
“He also asked if you were a virgin when we first had sex, but he didn’t have much expectations on it.” He giggled, and my jaw dropped.   
“Now he’ll think I am a slut.” I whimpered. “You could have told him I wanted to stay pure until marriage or something…”  
“He said he is ok with it as long as we have safe sex.” Only God knows how much I hate the expression ‘safe sex’. “And if you wanted to stay pure until marriage I would have to marry you, Jade, because I need _this_. And I am too young to get married.”  
As he said it his hands were travelling down my waist to my thighs, stroking them lightly and making me shiver.   
“Yeah, I need this too…” I muttered, pulling him closer by his neck and sucking on it. His big hands were teasing the elastic band of my panties and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. Then I remembered that my parents were in the next room. “…But not here, Harry.”  
“Why?” He sounded desperate.   
“My parents.” I simply answered.   
But he didn’t listen, he continued stroking my waist and thighs, pinching and scratching sometimes, making me moan lowly in pain and pleasure. He was about to take off my panties, but I stopped him.  
“Please.” He begged. “I need you. Please.”  
I could feel his crotch pressing again my waist; he actually needed me. So I removed my hand and let him do, taking off my pyjama sweatpants and my panties, starting to rub my slit and my clit. I closed my eyes and wrapped my fingers around his strong arm, feeling the muscles tense and relax as he worked in me.   
“We can’t make any noise.” I whispered in a moan. “Ah…Alright? Don’t make any noise, please…”  
He got his lips next to my ear and spoke with husky voice.   
“You know, I like it when you look this fragile… When you tremble under my touch, when you try to shush me weakly like you are doing right now, though it’s you who’s making noise, how you try to be dominant but never get it because your body becomes too heavy when I’m touching you…” While saying it he kept pumping his big, big fingers into my heat, making my fingers clench around the sheets and bite down on his shoulder. “I love how you swear with your eyes hard closed, when you wrap your arms around my torso and dig your nails in my back. Wanting, needing, whimpering… _begging_.”  
As I wanted to corroborate what he was saying, I mumbled:  
“Harry, please…”  
“And I like it because the rest of the time it’s you who has the power over me, you are the one that leaves me breathless and makes me feel dizzy.” He was also leaving soft pecks on my neck as he whispered. “You have no idea what your eyes and your smile and the teasing way your body moves do to me… But when we’re alone at the bedroom…” He chuckled darkly, eyes full of lust. “Yeah, when we are like this it’s me who has the power, and I fucking love it.”  
“And I fucking love you, Harry.” I said, eyes shut.   
Did I say that on a loud voice?  
 _Oh, fuck._  
“What?” His fingers stopped and my eyes opened.  
“Nothing.” I replied immediately. “Keep going.”  
But Harry didn’t keep going. He just stared at me with a smile hanging from his lips.   
“What did you say, Jade?”  
Say it.   
_Say it._  
SAY IT.   
“I love you.” I whispered so low I feared he didn’t hear it, so I said it again. “I love you, Harry.”   
“Are you sure?”  
“I am 100% sure.” I said, and he kissed my nose, causing me to giggle.   
And I said it again and again not because I wasn’t sure if he heard it, but because it tasted too sweet in my mouth.


	21. Chapter 21

I stretched my whole body when I woke up, letting out weird noises and yawning. Harry and I barely slept last night. My arm fell on the left side of the bed, where Harry slept, but it was empty. I groaned and opened my eyes, feeling it still warm.   
I got up and walked to the kitchen, finding him sitting over the counter with his legs hanging from it and a milk glass on his hands. He smiled when he saw me and drank from his glass, liking his lips after doing it. I stepped in front of him, my hips in between his legs.   
“Good morning, baby.” He said, his voice still asleep.   
“What time is it?” I asked, drinking from his glass.   
“Last time I checked it was 12:45PM.”  
My eyes opened wide and my jaw dropped. We had less than an hour to get dressed and go to my brother’s house.  
“What?” Harry frowned.  
“We need to leave!” I cried out. “Now!”  
“Why?”   
“We have to be at my brother’s house in less than an hour and I have to take a shower and get dressed and put make up on and…”  
I tried to go to my bedroom, but he wrapped his legs around my waist, trapping me. He pulled me closer and kissed my lips, cupping my cheek with one of his hands as the other one stroked lightly my neck, making me get goose bumps.   
“Harry…” I whimpered through the kiss. “Not now…”  
“Let’s stay here all day. Your parents and your sister aren’t here, we have the house for ourselves.” Harry whispered against my half-opened mouth. “I don’t want to share you with anybody else today. I want to have you only for me all day, like last night.”  
My whole body tingled when I thought about last night. All the whispers, the touching, his sweet words, the moaning, his cold feet and warm thighs, my trembling body and needy lips. For a few seconds I considered if we could stay at home. But we couldn’t.  
“This is your fault.” I said, raising my look from his mouth to his eyes. “You wanted to come here; we could have spent the entire weekend at my flat, just you and I. You could have had me just for yourself for three days. But no, the boy wanted to come here and meet every single member of my family…”  
As I said it I started to stroke his thighs until I reached his crotch, slightly rubbing it. He opened his mouth, closing his eyes, and pressed his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. Then, I removed my hand and caressed his back gently. He frowned against my forehead but didn’t open his eyes.   
“Let’s go.” I murmured, moving away from him and smiling. “We have things to do.”  
“Jade, you can’t leave me like this…!”  
“We will have time to do whatever you want tonight. We will go to the beach us two alone, alright?” I said. “But now I have to take a shower.”  
“Me too.” He smirked, but I didn’t get why.   
“Me first!” I immediately replied, running to the bathroom. But Harry jumped off the counter and ran after me, quickly catching me from behind and lifting me from the ground by my waist. “Harry, don’t cheat!”  
“I am not cheating.” He laughed. “But I though we were in a hurry, and the world is running out of water…”  
“So, what do you think we could do?” I said, knowing what was he going to say.  
“Let’s shower together.” He whispered in my ear, his warm body pressing closer to mine. 

My brother has always been really protective when it comes about me, but he also knows that I know how to take care of myself. So when we arrived to his house and he saw Harry, he knew I am not making any mistake. He shook Harry’s hand and invited him to come in, then hugged me effusively.  
“Where’s Samantha?” I asked. “It’s been ages since I don’t see her.”  
“She’s at the living room with Jess.”   
I smiled wide; I was dying to see my niece. Ed accompanied us to the living room, showing us his corridor first, full of his own paintings. Ed always liked to draw and paint; I used to think he would become an artist and live for it, but he decided it was better to be a doctor. I got a bit disappointed when he told me, I always wanted to have an artist in our family and, no matter how bad I tried, I knew it wasn’t going to be me.   
I was expecting the lunch and afternoon to be quiet and calm, but my brother had another idea. When we entered the living room, a quite big bunch of people popped out from behind the sofa, curtains, from under the table or from other room.   
“TADAAAA!”  
My jaw dropped as I recognized all of them. My three old best friends, people from high school, a friend I made while I was working at a cafeteria next to my house, a boy from the last year that asked me out five times, some of my brother’s friends… Was that Stephen?   
Harry immediately held my hand, and I squeezed it. I am not sure why did he do it, though. While we were in the car I told him I didn’t really want to see the people that stayed here, at Brighton, but the way he held my hand wasn’t comforting, he wasn’t trying to make me feel better. It was more like the way a child holds his mum’s hand when there are a lot of people he doesn’t like or know around him, looking for protection. It was also possessive; he didn’t want me to get closer to them.   
“I wanted to make a little homecoming party to you.” Ed whispered in my ear, squeezing my arm. I smiled, but the smile broke.   
“You didn’t need to invite _everybody._ ”  
“Don’t be silly.” Ed laughed. “They really wanted to see you.”  
I had to hug dozens of people, introduce Harry to everybody, there were cries of excitement and cries from the baby.   
“I can’t believe you weren’t going to phone us, Jade.” Elise, one of my old best friends, said. Bree and Halley were standing behind her.   
“I am only going to stay here for three days, and I didn’t knew about this, I thought it was only going to be the family but…”  
“Oh, shut up!” Halley laughed. “We are really happy to see you.”   
I was happy to see them too, to be honest, but it also made me feel sad. The fact that Bree, who used to be my best friend ever, didn’t hug me, or either said a word to me. I know she is mad at me because, when I moved to London, I kind of forgot about everybody, even her, who I promised I wouldn’t ever forget. It’s not like I have definitely forgotten about her, but she didn’t make any effort to know about me. I invited her to London thousands of times and she never came. But she was there, standing behind Halley and Elisa, drawing a sad smile on her lips.   
“So, let’s get drunk?” Someone said, though it was 1:30 PM and I was starving.  
I soon released Harry’s hand and kind of forgot about him for a few hours. I didn’t think he could feel awkward or out of place though there was a lot of people at the house; he’s used to be surrounded by thousands of people, celebrities, fans… He has to be good at making friends.   
“You should go to talk to Bree.” Elise said to me when the night came, and I was drunk enough to agree.  
She was sitting on the couch next to Pete, a guy I used to kind of like when I was in high school. I sat in the table front of them, and Bree slowly stopped talking to him to look at him. Fortunately, Pete left and I sat next to Bree, letting my weight fall heavily over the couch.   
“Hello, Bree.” I said. She nodded politely. “How are you?”  
“I am good.” She murmured. “I like your brother’s house.”  
“You always liked my brother.” I joked, and she laughed softly. An awkward silence followed that. “Why are you here, Bree?”  
“Because I am your friend.” She frowned. “Or at least I used to be until you replaced me for those twins or whatever…”  
“You are being childish and stupid.” I immediately answered. “I never replaced you. I told you to come to London millions of times and you never wanted to!”  
“I don’t fit in there.” She murmured, causing me to cluck. “I feel comfortable in Brighton.”  
“I don’t really feel comfortable in here anymore, Bree.”  
She raised her eyes to look at me and grinned, hurt. I shrugged and shook my head.   
“I guess we are not comfortable with each other anymore, then.” She said.  
“What?”  
But she didn’t answer. She got up slowly and left me alone in the couch, eyes wide open and jaw on the floor. It was supposed to be my party, but I was the only one who was alone and looking stupid.   
Where was Harry?  
Before I could get up and go to find him, someone else sat next to me.   
“You grew up.” Stephen said, smirking to me.   
His blonde hair was now darker, and his sweet eyes were rougher. He also grew up; he was around 25 years old and hotter.   
“I had to.” I shrugged. He nodded.  
“You look beautiful.”  
“Thanks.” I smiled. “You look nice too.”  
His smirk grew bigger and he laid his back on the couch, drinking from his glass. I stared at him for a while before leaning back too.  
“Are you and Ed friends again?”   
“I guess. It’s been four years since then.” He shrugged. “Is that guy you came with your boyfriend?” He asked then. I nodded. “Are you happy with him?”  
“I am.” I replied, suddenly missing him.   
“He’s younger than you, isn’t he?”  
“Yes.” I replied, and he made a weird face. “What?”  
“Boys are always less mature than girls, that’s why the woman is always younger than the guy.” He said. “He’ll hurt you.”  
“Older men have hurt me more than him.” I frowned, referring to him. He looked at me raising an eyebrow.   
“Just give him time.” Stephen said. “In two, three months as much…everything will be ruined.”  
“Can you please stop?” I immediately replied. “You are not the most indicated to give me advices about love. I remind you that you were an ass to me.”  
“Come on, Jade, that happened long time ago.” He chuckled. “Forget it.”  
“I don’t mind, Stephen.” I said, getting up. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to see my boyfriend.”  
I looked for Harry around the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, the garden… I looked through the window to check if he was at the beach. He wasn’t in any of these places.   
I was walking down the corridor when I heard a low voice singing at the other side of the door, but I couldn’t tell what was it, not over the loud music that came from the living room. I frowned and held the latch, opening the door, decided to discover what was that melodic sound.   
When I opened the door I found Harry standing in the middle of Jess’ room, his arms swinging what seemed a big worm of little blankets. His back was facing me; his head lightly leaned down to the baby in his arms.   
He was singing to Jess, not a specific song; he was just humming a low and gentle melody.   
“Harry.” I whispered with a smile, closing the door behind me. He turned around and looked surprised. “What are you doing?”  
“Your…The…Samantha.” He stuttered, and then shook his head and coughed, focusing. “I was looking for the toilet and I entered here by mistake. Samantha was here with your niece…she was crying and Samantha had to leave so she told me to take care of her for a few minutes and…”  
That was when I noticed that I ignored Harry and Jess all day, probably the best two people at the house. I walked towards Harry and looked at her. Her little hands, her green eyes closing. She yawned and I smiled, caressing her head.   
“You were singing to her.” I murmured, still looking at her.   
“Oh, yes…” He replied awkwardly, and I looked at him. “I usually do it with Lux, to stop her from crying…I guess she likes my deep voice, because when Louis sings to her she cries even more.”   
I laughed and he smiled in a weird way, maybe sad.   
“Can I take her?” I asked.  
“Of course.” He said immediately. “It’s your niece, not mine.”  
I took Jess in my arms and swung her, staring at her little _everything_. Harry was in front of me, watching me with a glance that was making my stomach feel sick. I was going to ask him what was wrong when the door opened.  
“What a cute family.” Stephen chuckled.   
“Stephen.” I frowned. “What do you want?”  
Harry quickly stepped in front of me, trying to protect me subconsciously.   
“Wow, boy, don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt your girlfriend, or her beautiful niece.”   
“Who are you?” Harry asked him, but Stephen didn’t reply. He turned around to look at me. “Who is he?”  
“Nobody.” I replied, causing Stephen to chuckle again.   
“Your girl and I had something long time ago.”  
Harry frowned and I took a step forward, still holding Jess in my arms.  
“You told me to forget about it, Stephen, but it seems like you’re the one that didn’t forget it.” I said. “And we had nothing.”  
“Yeah, you are right, we didn’t have anything.” He nodded. “That was what you wished.”  
That actually hurt me. It’s not like I still like Stephen, but people say you never forget about your first love. And my first love was an asshole, and he still is.   
I didn’t know what to reply, but Harry did it for me.  
“You are drunk, mate.” He said, walking towards him and grabbing the door, about to close it. “The baby is asleep, you don’t want to wake her up, right?”  
With that, he closed the door in front of Stephen. Then turned around and faced me, his eyes a bit rough.   
“Thanks.” I mumbled.  
He was about to say something when the door opened again. Luckily, this time it was Samantha. She looked at both of us and then gently took Jess from my arms.   
“This boy is an angel, Jade, you are lucky.” She said, and Harry smiled. “People are looking for you, they are leaving; you should go to say bye. You two are sleeping here today, right?”

It was around 2 in the morning and Harry and I were at the beach, lying in the sand next to each other. One of his arms was around my shoulders, and my head was resting over his chest, going up and down with each breath he took.  
My brother and his wife were already sleeping, but Harry and I decided to go to the beach.   
It was incredibly quiet; the silence was lulled by the sound of the lazy waves. It was also incredibly dark, though the sky was full of little bright spots that got Harry hypnotized. The stars were reflected into his eyes, and I tried to read what was on them, getting no results.  
“What are you thinking about?” I asked. He looked at me and frowned. “You look worried.”  
“Did you have fun today?” He ignored my last question.   
“I guess.” I shrugged, looking away.   
“That is good.” He murmured, his hand tangling on my hair and caressing my head.  
But his eyes were still lost, again focused on the stars. The truth is that I didn’t really have fun; that was why I didn’t want to see all those people again. Everything has changed, we don’t have things to talk about anymore, we don’t like the same things, we have very different ways to think.  
And Bree and Stephen were messing with my mind.  
“Are you going to tell me who was that guy?” Harry whispered.  
“Is that what’s bothering you?” I asked, but he didn’t reply. “It is a long story, Harry…”  
“I want to hear it.”  
I sit up and looked at him, who stayed with his back pressed to the sand. I have never seen Harry like that; it wasn’t like when he saw me with Garret, this time he was just serious. His face had no expression, his eyes were piercing me and he didn’t blink once.   
I took a long breath and started to talk. I told him everything, I told him when I first met him, I told him how I fell for him and also that he was my first time. I explained to him what happened after all of that, how my brother and him had a massive fight and never talked to each other until now, how I cried for ages and felt gross during months. I told him about our last chat at the party.   
But I kept talking and he kept listening, so I told him about Bree as well. And also about Garret. And I could have confessed how I broke my dad’s watch when I was five if he hadn’t stopped me.   
“Come here.” He whispered when I shut my mouth, opening his arms. I did what I was told and laid on his chest again, letting him cuddle for a while.  
The truth is that I got really emotional telling him all of that, but it also felt amazing. Having him listening to me, not saying a word but actually listening, was something I needed. I thanked him and said sorry so many times he ended up cutting me off by kissing me lips for longer than never, but only pressing his lips against mine.   
“I am also sorry about leaving you alone.” I whispered into his mouth. “There were too many people.”  
“Don’t worry, Jade.” I whispered back. “I just get a bit jealous sometimes, you know? Because I can’t believe I have you and I get scared only by the though that you can fade any moment, leaving me as I was before. As lonely as I was.”  
I looked at him surprised by the fact that he thought _he_ was lucky to have _me_. I think Harry doesn’t really realize who he is, what does he have right now, what he can do. I think he still sees himself as the 16 years old boy who auditioned for The X Factor but with a bit more luck. It also surprised me that he said he used to feel alone before he had me.  
As he read my mind, he spoke:  
“It’s like… I have amazing people around me, and I am massively happy I got to know all of them, they are the best friends ever, but…” He bit his own lip, stopping from talking for a few seconds. “But I think that is not what a person looks for. Everybody says they have enough with friends and family, and it’s true that those are really important things in someone’s life, but it’s also a massive lie. Like, you can have more friends than anybody in this world but if you don’t have that one person you want, you are not happy. Some people are good when they’re single, I am fine too when I am single, but it’s only because they have not found that person, I guess. All we need is love, but not any kind of love… We need _this_ kind of love.”  
That scared me a bit.   
What if I can’t give Harry that kind of love? What if I can’t love him _good_? What if I hurt him?   
I was about to talk when he got up, pushing me away from him gently. I looked at him confused from the ground, and his lips curved into a big smile.   
“Let’s swim.” He said.   
“What? Are you crazy?” I cried out. “I am not getting in there!”  
“Why?”  
“Because it’s cold and dark and scary and…”   
“Guess I’ll have to swim on my own.” He shrugged.  
Harry walked towards the shore and stood there for a few seconds before taking of his shoes and his socks. I watched him with a smile on my lips until he started to strip. He took off his shirt slower than ever, knowing I was looking at him. His neck lazes danced and tangled with each other, causing him to grin and take them as well. I bit my lower lip hard when he started to take off his jeans, unbelting them and sliding them off slowly, his back muscles tensing with the action.   
I thought he was going to enter the water like that, but _Harry’s worst habit is getting naked all the time_. He took off his boxers and placed them next to the pile of clothes, starting to get into the water, caressing the surface layer of the water with his hands. As his body started to sink in the water I bit my lip harder until I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up quickly and ran towards the shore, stripping down fast. I wondered if I should take off my bra and my panties as well.  
“Ah, who cares.” I said to myself, taking them off.   
I entered the cold water grinning and swam in front of Harry. He popped out from the water with a massive smile and his tongue out.   
“You look like a wet doggy.” I said, removing his wet curls from his forehead.  
“And you look like a mermaid.” He replied, pecking my lips and causing me to giggle.   
Harry swam away from me, his strong arms showing from time to time, his wet muscles teasing me like hell. I didn’t enter that freaking cold water for nothing.   
“Jade!” He yelled. “Come here!”  
Harry was quite far away from me, and I looked at him scared.  
“You are… too far.” I stuttered. “Why don’t you come here?”  
“Are you scared?” He laughed.  
“Please.” I begged.   
And he swam towards me quickly, holding me by my waist and pulling me closer to him. I guess at first he didn’t thought I was fully naked, because his face looked surprised when our bodies touched, his eyes getting bigger and a smirk forming on his lips.   
“You are shaking.” He said. “And your lips are purple.”  
“I am cold.” I whimpered. “And I am scared. And disgusted.”  
“Shut up.” He said immediately, and crashed my lips to his, roughly kissing and biting them. “I know a way to stop all of that.”  
That made me moan, pulling his body closer to mine in need. We were close to the shore now, Harry’s feet were on the floor, lifting my weight. I had my legs wrapped around his chest, my heat pressed against his hips. I was so cold yet so hot, my chest going up and down heavily as his steamy kisses made my body tremble. His fingers drew the curve of my breasts as his eyes watched me through the water. I closed my eyes and threw my head back when he started to suck on my neck, and my hand travelled down on his thighs, stroking them until I reached his already hard member, starting to jerk him slowly.  
“Oh, God, baby.” He moaned against my neck. “I love you.”   
When he said it I grabbed his chin and raised it, making him open his eyes and look at me. I pecked his lips softly a couple of times and then stared into his eyes. They looked deep and full of life.   
“I love you too, Harry.” I whispered as he slid himself into me, never breaking eye contact.


	22. Chapter 22

Once I got used to that sentence I couldn’t stop saying it. And whenever I say it, I realize that it’s genuinely true. And whenever he says it back, I realize that it genuinely makes me happy.   
_“I can’t believe this.” I whispered to him last night.  
“Believe what?” He asked, kissing my neck carefully.  
“That I let myself fall for you.”  
“Is it that bad?”  
“No.” I mumbled. “It is amazing.”_  
However, not everybody agrees with me.   
Harry and I left Brighton this morning; my brother drove us to my parent’s house first. We were picking up our stuff when my dad called me. They were at the kitchen (and with _they_ I mean all of my family, including my brother’s wife, my sister and my grandparents).   
“We need to talk to you.” My dad said.   
“Well, alright, but let me help Harry finish packing up and…” I replied, but they cut me off, telling me it was important. I frowned. “What is wrong?”  
“Sit down.”  
I sat in front of my parents, the kitchen table separating us. I glanced at my brother and my sister looking for a quick answer, but they didn’t say anything. My sister seemed worried, and only my granddad smiled to calm me down.   
“We all like Harry.” My mum started. “But your dad and I don’t think he’s good for you. He’s mature and polite, and…”  
“And hot.” My sister murmured to herself, giggling. Everybody turned to look at her and she apologized, still laughing.  
“And, as I said, we really like him, but Jade…He’s a famous, he lives in such a different world than us.”  
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused and pissed. “What are you trying to say?”  
“What we are trying to say, Jade,” It was my dad this time. “Is that Harry isn’t good for you. You never liked fame and too much attention, right?”  
“That doesn’t matter.”  
“It does.” Both of them said at the same time.  
I looked at the rest of my family in the kitchen. My grandma was looking at me with hurt eyes, like she was in my situation. I bet she was almost in tears, or maybe it was just her old eyes, but they were sparkling. My brother and his wife were murmuring, probably talking about me. My sister was biting her nails.   
“He won’t hurt me, if that’s what worries you.”  
“This is only going to end in tears, Jade.”  
I could feel the anger filling my veins, rushing through them. I got up, the chair under me making a strident noise.   
“I know it will.” I spat, my voice broken. “But it won’t be his fault, and it’s my decision. I want to take that risk.”  
“We are not telling you to break up with him, Jade, but…”  
“That’s exactly what you are doing.” I cut them off. My sister gasped. “But I won’t. I am in love with him, sorry if it bothers you.”  
There was a deep silence in the room, a silence my dad broke.  
“I don’t think you two know what love means.”   
That _actually_ hurt me. My dad, who cheated on my mother two years ago and who knows if he did it again, who is about to sign the divorce, who’s been years since doesn’t kiss his wife.   
“I don’t think _you_ know what it means.”   
After saying it, I left the room. I slammed the door and found Harry next to it. He looked awkward and coughed twice, trying to act normal. My face was red by the anger and my chest was going up and down quickly; my eyes were probably wet.  
“Were you listening to our conversation?”  
“Maybe.” He replied, not sure if it would annoy me.  
I let out a soft tired laugh and told him to go to my bedroom for our luggage. He sat over my bed heavily, taking his phone and scrolling down on it as I finished getting ready. I was picking up my shoes and t-shirts all over the bedroom, glancing at him from time to time. I knew he wanted to say something.  
“Harry.” I murmured.  
“Yes.” He was still looking at the screen.   
“What happens?”  
But he didn’t say anything. I sat next to him and he didn’t move a single muscle, I pecked his cheek and his lips didn’t smile.   
“Harry, what did you hear?” I asked then.   
That was when he looked at me, his eyes smiling with a tint of sadness. I asked again, desperate to know.   
“Do you think this is only going to end in tears?” He mumbled.   
“Oh, Harry…” I clucked, kneeling down in front of him and taking both of his cold hands.   
“Your parents were right, Jade, we live in different worlds.” He whispered. “I felt out of place this weekend…I mean, I had fun, but I know I don’t belong here, and when you’re with my friends I know you don’t feel comfortable either…”  
“Stop.” I said. “This isn’t my life anymore, Harry. My life now is London.” His eyes were scared, his hands sweating. I pressed my forehead against his and pecked his lips, feeling my stomach twist with his bare touch.   
I felt him lightly nodding and his eyes travelled from mine to my mouth, watching them speak,  
“You are my life now, Harry.”  
“I won’t hurt you, Jade. I can’t.” He whispered immediately, closing his eyes and squeezing my hands. “And if someone ever tries to hurt you…”  
“I know you’ll kick them.” I giggled, closing my eyes as well and feeling him.   
“If you don’t do it first, huh?”  
I didn’t think it was possible for me to love someone so much. I wanted to get up and tell my family, specially my dad, that they are wrong. I do know what love means. And for me, it means _Harry_.


	23. Chapter 23

Life is starting to be normal again. Before I left Brighton my dad and I had a massive fight, and I told my family I am not going there on Christmas. I still keep that idea on my mind.   
I am back to my university-Lush-home routine, and I have to say I kind of missed it. I missed Gina and Hudson, and I missed my cat Marshall. People that have pets feel less alone I believe, I don’t miss Harry as much when my cat lies with me and starts purring.   
Harry’s been away for three nights, and he won’t be back until four more days. He’s somewhere around the world, posing for magazines and appearing on local channels. I miss him, but it’s ok. I also like having time for myself, and we talk on the phone every night.  
There is something that isn’t normal, tho. Garret. Today he told us the marks of our essays, and I barely passed it. When it finished, I went to talk to him and asked him if we could revise it together, so he could tell me my fails.  
“No, Jade.” He said. “That’s your mark.”  
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lawson, but this essay was for an A.” I called him by his surname, not sure how should I speak to him.  
“That’s your opinion.” He replied. “I have mine.”  
“No, it’s objective.”  
“Are you questioning my job?”  
I groaned, closing my eyes and massaging my temples, leaving the papers over his table. I watched him as he picked up his stuff into his bag, getting ready to leave me there.   
“Garret, I need to talk to you.” I said calmly, looking for his eyes. “Not as your student, but as your friend.”   
He stared at me while frowning, and sat down on his chair. His expression was tense; I could tell he wasn’t comfortable.   
“Speak.” He ordered. I took a deep breath.  
“I am sorry for what happened between us, it was definitely a mistake and you know it too. It was a mistake the first time, but also the second one and the third, and the following ones. You are a married man and I am dating someone. You are my teacher and I am your student. It was obvious from the beginning that there was some…sexual frustration between us, but that was everything. It’s not professional to let your feelings affect your job and it is not fair for me since you have all the power over me on these situations. So please, I am asking you, not as a student, but as a friend, to leave the feelings behind and start over again as a completely normal teacher and a completely normal student.”  
“I can’t do that, Jade.” He murmured. I asked why. “I just can’t leave my feelings behind on this, I am sorry. It is pathetic coming from a 30 years old married man, but maybe my feelings are too strong to ignore them.”  
“Do you mean that…?” I felt my heart pounding harder and harder, scared of the answer.   
He watched me for a couple of infinite seconds before removing his eyes and licking his lips, getting up and making me take a step back, afraid.   
“How was your weekend with _him_?” He asked.  
“How did you know?”  
“I phoned to your house yesterday. I needed to talk to you, about this.” He murmured, not looking at me. “A girl answered the phone and told me you were at Brighton with your boyfriend and your family. I guess it’s serious if you introduced him to your family, right?”  
It was Gina, I told her to go to my house and feed Marshall while I was out. Garret phoned to my house when she was there, and probably she got sassy and told him to fuck off. She really likes Harry for me.   
I have to talk to her.   
“Garret, I am sorry for this…”  
“Don’t worry, Jade.” He smiled politely. “It is not your fault, I’ll be alright. You are a great girl and an excellent student, I am glad to be only your teacher. Don’t worry about your essay; I corrected it while I was mad. It’s one of the best essays I have ever had the pleasure to read.”   
I looked at him steadily; the way he was talking to me was the same it used to be a month ago. He is nothing else but a good professor again, I guess. But he still acts weird around me, he obviously avoids me though I’m really grateful that he stopped that stupid behavior over me.   
I can’t believe what he said, though. Does he _actually_ feel something towards me? It makes me feel kind of bad, to be honest. I always admired him, and this is… It’s just weird.   
Yeah, Garret was a big mistake…  
What wasn’t a mistake is Harry. I can’t believe I am saying it, but, oh, God, I actually love him. I know I wasn’t sure about it like… two weeks ago, but once I let my own feelings free…they are doing whatever the fuck they want with me, and it couldn’t feel any better.   
Only his husky voice on the phone telling me how much he wishes I were there with him makes me shiver. I spent the last four nights reinventing the touch of his skin, the overwhelming sensation of his desire, the curve of his back and his magic lips. The innocent power his words have over me, how beautiful he looks without even trying, confident, comfortable, _happy_. And, oh, how much he likes to tell me it’s because of me, that I am the reason behind that permanent smile on his lips.   
And looking at him I get scared because I can feel it, I can feel how real this feeling I have stuck in my stomach is. Just a smile, a sight, a touch… It’s enough for me to believe in something I never thought that could be true.  
I keep repeating his words from the last time we were together in my mind, over and over. We were both lying on our sides; his eyes drinking from mine while his fingers were drawing on my back.  
 _“Will you promise me something, Jade?” He whispered. I nodded; ‘Anything, Harry’. “Will you promise me that you won’t forget this? That you will grow up, get older and older until you can’t walk without the help of a cane and you will be moody and grumpy all day -because I know you will be a grumpy granny- but… won’t ever forget me?”  
“Like I could ever forget you, Harry.” I murmured as I caressed his cheek, my voice becoming weak. But he kept going.  
“Promise me that you will sit in your chair when your husband isn’t at home, with your granddaughter kneeled in front of you, and you will tell her everything. Promise me that you will tell her when you were young and pretty and you fell in love with a boy, his name was Harry…That you will tell her every single detail because she just loves listening to our story; when we danced until we couldn’t breathe anymore, when we swam naked in the sea, when I was so drunk I yelled that I love you through a window and you tried to shush me, when we wanted to spend the nights alone, just you and I.”  
“I love you, Harry.” I shook my head, staring at his wet eyes. “I love you so much.”  
He smiled, pulling me closer if it was possible and pecking everywhere on my neck.  
“Promise me.” He kept saying. “Tell me you’ll remember me.”  
“I will die loving no one but you, Harry.” I replied in a low murmur. “I promise.”_  
The nights are so long without him.


	24. Chapter 24

Do you know what sucks?   
When you wake up in the morning and get ready for University, and when you enter your fucking favorite class with your fucking favorite teacher he is back to a fucking idiot, like you didn’t have that fucking conversation days ago. When he acts like a faggot and makes you look like an idiot in front of almost 60 people.   
Then, you go to your fucking job and when you finish the fucking day your boss tells you she wants to talk to you. And what does she want to say to you? That you’re fucking faired. That they don’t want you there anymore because,  
“You know, Jade, when I hired you I was really happy with you, but lately you are never here and you are always distracted. When you started to date that famous guy I thought everybody would come to this shop, but nobody knows you so nobody does…I am sorry, but we don’t need you here anymore.”  
“Do you mean that…?” I stuttered, feeling fear fill my stomach.  
“That I don’t want you to work in here anymore.” She replied. “Give me your uniform and the plate with your name.”  
“But I don’t get it, why would you…”  
“I said I don’t want you to come here tomorrow, end off.” She said, pretty serious.   
I looked at her with anger and a lot of thoughts rushed my mind, making me want to rip off her head. But instead of ripping off her head, I ripped off my plate and spat,  
“You always were a bitch anyway.”  
I remember her yaw dropping to the floor as I walked away, Hudson covering his mouth with one of his hands to stop himself from laughing out loud, his eyes flooded with tears. Gina was biting her lip hard; of course she wanted to laugh just like Hudson, our boss always was too bossy and a bitch, but she knows how much I need the money.   
She ran out from the store and grabbed my wrist. I already had tears of anger in my eyes.  
“Hey, are you ok, Jade?”  
“That fucking bitch just fired me.” I yelled. “How am supposed to pay the rent of my house now? University? My food? _My cat’s food?_ My parents are mad at me, I can’t ask them for money.”  
“You will find another job soon, don’t worry, you are good at everything.” She tried to cheer me up. “And you know that I can always lend you money…”  
“That is lame.” I chuckled. “I am supposed to be an adult, I am supposed to be able to pay things myself.”  
Gina stared at me for long seconds and then grinned, wrapping her arms around my neck in a comforting hug. I buried my face into her shoulder and let two warm tears wet my cheeks.  
“What am I supposed to do now?”  
“Go home and eat whatever you want for dinner, but don’t tell Hudson, ok?” Gina smiled. “I’ll call you later.”  
That’s what I did. I went home and ate everything that was in the fridge while petting my cat and watching a film. But I wasn’t actually doing any of these things, my mind was somewhere else.   
I needed that job; I need that money. I _hate_ having to ask my parents for money each month, and of course, I can’t do it anymore. My eyes started to become a pool again and I took my phone.  
“Harry?” I asked when he answered it.   
“Jade, baby.” His voice was husky and tired. “How are you doing?”  
“I don’t know.” I replied, a sob fighting to get out. “When are you coming back?”  
“Right now.” He giggled. “I just left the luggage. What is wrong?”  
I closed my eyes and avoided a sob, imagining him lying on his bed with one of his hands resting over the soft fabric of his t-shirt, the other one holding the phone to his ear as his eyebrows frown and his nostrils become bigger, because when Harry is worried, his nostrils get bigger.   
“I need you.” I whispered. “Can you come home, please?”  
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”  
And when Harry says he’ll be there in fifteen minutes, he always is.  
 _Ding, dong_ and _‘I missed you’_. _Ding, dong_ and _‘Please, don’t cry’_. _Ding, dong_ and brown slippers with skinny jeans, gentle lips and a leather jacket against the wall, kisses and intertwined hands.  
 _Ding, dong_ and _‘God, I love you’_.   
“Thank you for coming.” I mumbled against his mouth. “Thank you so much.”  
“Will you tell me why were you crying?”   
I rested my forehead over his and felt his chest against mine, the sound of his heartbeat calming me down more than anything. Everything in Harry makes me feel safe, everything about him makes me want to scream and shout and yell. His long fingers wrapping mine, his strong arms around my waist and his beautiful smile warming me up.   
“I got fired.” I shrugged, and it seemed insignificant next to him. “I no longer have a job, which means I no longer have money, which means I am going to be homeless.”   
Harry frowned, processing the information.   
“You got fired?” He asked. I nodded. “But, Jade, the money is not a problem…”  
“Harry, it is my only problem.”   
“Not as long as you and I are dating.” He smiled to me like I was a little kid. “My money is yours, Jade.”  
My eyes opened wide and I gasped. The amount of money Harry owns is incredible, but I couldn’t accept it. I shook my head immediately.   
“I won’t let you pay anything for me.”  
“Well, you’ll have to.” He smirked. “We need to find an elegant dress for you.”   
“Why? What for?” I frowned. “Remember I don’t have money, I won’t be able to go out.”  
“You will have to tomorrow.” Harry whispered into my ear. “We are going to dinner with some important people, and you will come with me.”   
I pulled him away to look at his eyes, confused. Harry was bringing me to an important dinner? With important people? Horror overran me, and he read it in my eyes.   
“I want to finally show you off to everybody, Jade.” He whispered while smirking. “I want to introduce you to everybody, make everybody see how amazingly beautiful and perfect you are, tell everybody that you are mine, and I am yours.”   
“Harry, that is… that is actually beautiful and it makes me really happy but… are you sure?”  
“Completely sure, Jade.” His smile grew bigger. “During this week I realized how much I want to tell it to the whole world. I don’t want you to be a blurry image on a magazine anymore.” He did a pause before taking a deep breath and speak again. “What do you say?”  
“It sounds scary.” I confessed, and I saw his smile sink. “But I guess I have nothing to hide. My family already know, my friends already know… I am just scared about… your fans. Wouldn’t them hate me?”  
“They will adore you, Jade.” He replied immediately, and I grinned. “Well, I guess some of them will hate you, but that’s normal isn’t it? I’m sure they’ll end up liking you.” Then, he laughed. “They are not so horrible, Jade, they are actually amazing.”   
I stared into his green eyes looking for an answer. I love Harry, but this will definitely change my life. Right now I am just a blurry picture as he said, but I can become into a high quality image. And when you’re high quality… they can see you perfectly.   
But his eyes had so much excitement, so much love, so much life…  
“Alright.” I said. “Let’s tell the word.”   
“That sounds incredible, Jade.” He whispered, pecking my lips. “I love you so much.”  
I kissed him back, feeling my stomach twist. I won’t even get used to his lips, the way they move along mine, fitting perfectly.   
“Harry…” I murmured, breaking the kiss. “Did you mean what you just said?”  
“Mean what?”  
“That you are mine.” I swallowed, my throat drying up to the words. Harry Styles is _mine_.   
“ _Yours._ ” He whispered with piercing eyes, his lips caressing the words as they flew out from his mouth. “Forever.”  
 _Mine, forever. Mine, forever. Mine. Forever._   
“I can’t even believe it.” I shook my head, resting it over his chest. He kissed my temple and caressed my hair before speaking.  
“Can we go to the bedroom now, Jade?” He asked like little kids do.   
“Why? Are you tired? You should sleep here.”  
“No, I am not tired, but you are barely wearing a thing though it’s freezing and I am horny as fuck.” He said while laughing, and I pushed him gently.   
“Way to kill the moment.” I rolled my eyes back.   
“I want to do very naughty things to you.” He was playing his most innocent voice and his hottest smirk, causing my cheeks to flush. “Can I?”  
“Yeah, yeah, you do…”  
I grabbed his shirt and dragged him to my bedroom, pushing him onto the mattress and turning off the lights, undressing myself in the silence of my room, only broken by Harry’s heavy breathing.   
The worst day ever always becomes the best one when he is around.


	25. Chapter 25

When Harry talked about buying an expensive dress I thought he meant something from Jack Wills, even from Top Shop or Urban Outfitters, not from Burberry. I didn’t ever thought he would say that we could go to Alexander McQueen or Marc Jacobs.   
My jaw dropped to the floor and his smile got wider.   
“I won’t be able to go with you.” He said. “So you should take Gina and Hudson with you, they’ll know how to help you.”  
I knew Harry had nothing to do, but he decided that it was better to let me go with my friends and have fun with them. That is one of the many things I love about him; he knows exactly when he should give me my space and let me have fun without him.   
Gina couldn’t believe it when she saw the money I was carrying, but Hudson almost fainted. The twins also have money, but not as much as Harry. Of course they can go shopping and buy tons of clothes and make up and perfumes, but they can’t spend 600+ pounds in a nightdress or a suit they’re going to wear only once and then choose shoes and some accessories.   
“Ok, correct me if I’m wrong.” Hudson said. “Your super hot and super famous boyfriend just gave you 1,500 pounds to spend on a fabulous outfit for tonight because he wants to _tell the world that you’re his_. Am I right?”  
“Completely right.” I replied, laughing because I can’t believe it myself.   
“I hate you.” Both of them replied with one voice.   
They usually do that when they have a strong feeling towards something; they say the same thing at the same time and with the same voice. Even Gina looks bitchier and Hudson looks nicer.   
“Are you going to help me with it?” I raised my eyebrows begging, and they chuckled.   
“Don’t you dare to doubt it.” Again, they spoke at the same time. They should have high fived, it would have made it even more creepy.   
The truth’s that I have no idea of what to do when I have so much money (I never had so much money _exclusively_ for clothes) to spend. Everything seems too elegant or too informal, too expensive or too cheap, too beautiful or too ugly…   
Gina isn’t into fashion as much as Hudson is, so we ran up and down the center of London entering every single clothing shop that made Hudson scream in excitement, Gina and I guessing that it was a good thing. I hated how they looked at us, tho. The women working there were always too nice; her fake smiles even more fake when they talked to us, nobody else than an overexcited gay, his hyper twin and a lost girl.   
If we had gone with Harry all of them would have been much nicer even if they didn’t know who is Harry Styles, just because he is polite, good looking and charming. He recommended me to go to Stella McCartney because, oh, he knows her.   
But we ended up at Burberry, followed by a tall, fit clerk. She was looking askance at us when Gina picked a lace nude dress. It was tight, it had a large neck and the back was uncovered. The length stopped by the knees, and next to them there were the perfect heels. Not too high, not too short.  
“What do you think about this one?” Gina showed me the dress, placing it in front of her own body.  
“If you want to wear that you should be more tanned.” The clerk said, her annoying voice making me frown. “It’s a nude dress, if you aren’t tanned you’ll look…nude.”  
Hudson turned to look at the woman and shot her a killing glance. Gina blushed, her pale cheeks turning pink as she tried to hide behind the dress that was too long and too tight for her.   
“Yeah, I don’t think it would look good on her.” Hudson said, looking to the clerk from her head to her feet. She was too thin; you could feel all her bones. “But I don’t think it would look good in someone that’s insanely thin, right?” His smile was as fake as hers, and she obviously caught the indirect. “We’re lucky that none of you are going to wear it.” Gina and I giggled, the clerk gasped, horrified. “However, I think it would amazing on my friend. She is tanned and her figure is beautiful, I think this neck would make her bust more prominent and the form of the dress would highlight her waist and butt… Right?”  
The woman had nothing to say. She nodded a couple of times and then left, mumbling that it would look amazing on me. Hudson and Gina high fived, but this time it wasn’t creepy; it was utterly adorable.   
I tried the dress on me and whirled to show Gina and Hudson, who looked at me while frowning. I grinned and looked at myself in the mirror, both of them placing a hand over each of my shoulders.  
“Baby, when he sees you in this dress…” Gina started.  
“…He’ll fall for you even more.” Hudson finished.  
“Do you think?” I frowned. “I am scared, I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight.”  
“You look stunning, Jade, I would turn straight just for you.”  
I sighed and flattened the dress with my hands, feeling a weird sensation at the tip of my stomach. So many important people, so many cameras and expensive things…  
“Thanks.” I murmured. “I love you both.”

I was about to finish my make up when Harry rang the bell repeatedly.   
“Wait, wait, wait, wait…” I murmured, finishing my eye line. But he kept ringing, causing me to move my hand sharply and extend the line to my temple. Another ring. “Oh, fuck.”  
I opened the door and found him smiling wide, his index finger placed on the doorbell innocently. He looked amazing. His suit fitted him perfectly, and who said bowties aren’t fashion anymore? His hair looked so smooth and his lips so kissable, the dimples below his cheeks very pronounced.   
I wanted to kiss him so bad but I was too busy covering the temple with my hand, and trying to smile at him but ending up grinning.   
“You look _extra beautiful._ ”  
“Thanks.” I blushed. “But I still have to finish my make up.”  
“But it’s perfect.” He frowned, taking my free hand. “And why are you covering your temple like that?”  
I uncovered it and showed him the black line along it. He stared at it confused and then let out a loud laugh, one of those that make his mouth look really big and then cover it for not being too loud.   
“You look like Cleopatra.”  
“It’s your fault, you made me nervous with your ringing” I whimpered. “Ugh, you are so annoying, let me finish my make up and we leave, ok?”  
I turned around and left Harry looking at me like a puppy, with sparkly eyes and his lower lip out. I took toilet paper and tried to clean it, acting like I didn’t notice Harry followed me and was leaned back on the doorframe, watching me.   
“I love you.” He said, a half-smile on his lips.   
“I am so scared, Harry.” I confessed, looking at him on the mirror. His smile turned into a grin. “I am shaking and I my heart is racing, and we’re not even there yet. I won’t know what to do when we get there.”  
He pulled me closer by my waist gently, our bodies pressing and warming each other. I took a deep breath and rested my forehead on his shoulder, inhaling his perfume. He didn’t say anything until he thought I was calm enough.   
“I will be with you all night, I promise.” He whispered. “Every man there will turn around to look at you, you don’t need to worry.”  
“That’s the problem.” I clenched my fingers around his white shirt, shrugging my shoulders in a subconscious movement to make myself look smaller. “I don’t want people to look at me.”  
“You’ll feel comfortable, babe. Everything will be alright.”  
I raised my eyes to look at him and he smiled with them, making me feel much better. I nodded a couple of times and smiled back.  
“Let’s go then.”  
He left a soft kiss on my lips and we drove to the party. 

It was the most amazing place I have ever been to. A massive white room in the 10th floor with glass walls and two long tables in each side and waiters walking around there with trays of minimal food and champagne. There was a bar with two guys making cocktails under a cold blue light, smiling all the time. The people there couldn’t be more elegant; long dresses with light heels and beautiful ties with black slippers. All of them seemed to be having such a great time drinking champagne and talking lively, making they golden watches and bracelets tinkle. The music was amazing as well; in the middle of the room, a bit displaced to the left, there were people dancing.   
“What kind of party is this?” I whispered into Harry’s ears.  
“These are promoters and very important people from the music world.” He whispered back, smiling to some old man that waved at him. “The people that decide if I keep singing or not.”  
“That sounds scary.”   
“It is.” He confessed. “But they are nice people if they like you. Fortunately, they like me.”  
I smiled, how could anybody not like Harry?  
“Where are the boys?” I asked.  
“There.” Harry pointed at 4 fit boys dressed in suits, just like him, talking effusively to a man who’s face I couldn’t see. “Do you want to go with them?”  
I nodded and he placed his hand at the end of my back, driving me towards his band mates. Niall quickly saw him and smiled wide, looking really happy to see me. Zayn gave me two kisses and called me ‘babe’, causing my cheeks to turn pink. Liam smiled politely and Louis winked an eye, pointing at Harry’s hand. That was when I realized whom was the man standing next to them, the drink in his hand and a skeptical yet polite smile on his lips.  
“Simon Cowell.” I gasped. “Wow.”  
“Nice to meet you.” He shook my hand. “You must be… the girl Harry is dating, right?”  
“Jade.” Harry said, smiling. I could feel the nervousness and fear in his voice and movements.   
“Wow.” I repeated again, still holding his hand. He frowned, amused.  
“Your girlfriend looks shocked, Harry.” Simon Cowell joked.   
“Well, you own like the 70% of the music companies. Music is basically yours.” I smiled, laughing softly and nervously. “You even appear in the musical of Queen, I… I went to watch it some months ago and I swear they said in a few years the world will be yours.”   
He stared at me while squinting, thinking about what I just said. The boys laughed, but Harry’s hand petrified against my back. It stayed there, cold as ice, until Simon laughed, one of his arms rounding my shoulders.   
“I like her, Harry.” He said, patting his arm. “You should bring her here more often. Now, go show her my party.”  
He removed his arm and pushed us gently, forcing us to leave with a paternal smile on his lips.   
“The party is his? He did all of this?” I asked, pointing at the two women standing in weird positions at opposite sides of the room, acting like Greek sculptures. Harry nodded. “Did he like me?”   
“He loved you.” And pressed his lips against my forehead.   
The rest of the night was nice. I met a lot of young, pretty ladies and old, elegant women. Almost all the men there were chubby or simply fat, their dewlaps swollen and their faces red because of the tight shirts they were wearing underneath their jackets, squeezing their necks.   
As the hours kept passing the people there started to get louder and funnier, the alcohol they drank causing effects on them. It began to cause effects on Harry and I as well, so when they played a slow song I asked Harry if we could dance. I didn’t have to beg much anyway, Harry took my wrist and dragged me to the dance floor.   
“A beautiful girl like you shouldn’t be sitting as the other ones dance.”  
I smiled wide and kissed his lips for a second before jumping from the chair. I don’t even remember which song were they playing, but it was perfect.   
Harry’s hands slid along my back until they reached the end of it, staying there, almost over my butt. My arms rounded his neck as he pulled our bodies closer, his scent making my knees go weak. His sweet embrace made me feel like a few hours before at my bathroom; and in that moment it was just Harry and I dancing alone.   
“Thanks for bringing me here.” I mumbled, clenching my arms tighter around him and resting my head in the curve where his neck and his shoulder consolidate. “I didn’t tell you because I was too nervous about it, but it really means a lot. The fact that you… want everybody to know about us, that you aren’t scared of what people might think.”  
“I am not scared of anything as long as you’re around, Jade.” He whispered, kissing my head as his hands travelled down, resting over my ass. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “And it means much more to me… you aren’t afraid of my fame, and you don’t search for it either. It’s just as it is… Simple.”  
When he finished the sentence I removed my head from his neck and he pressed his forehead against mine, staring into my eyes. I smiled and kissed him softly yet passionately, and I felt like everybody was watching us, but didn’t care at all. Our bodies were moving in sink, I could feel all of his muscles moving underneath his shirt and against me, and I couldn’t get enough from him. I needed to touch them, scratch them, lick them.   
I suddenly got very horny.   
“I just had a... wild idea.” I giggled. He frowned and listened closer. “I want you, Harry. Right here, right now.”  
He bit his lower lip and left a kiss on my neck before whispering,  
“Go to the toilets, enter the men one when nobody is looking at you, but make sure nobody’s into it. Close the door with the latch and wait.” He told me. “I’ll go to talk to someone for five minutes and then I’ll knock the door.”  
“Alright.” I breathed, licking my lips with desire before adding, “It seems like you’ve done this so many times.”  
“More than you think.” He replied, and my jaw dropped, but he left me a quick kiss in my cheek and told me to leave.   
I entered the toilets and opened the door that had the drawing of a man on it. I did as I was told; I closed the door and waited for him. But I did something else, I also took off my panties.   
I was brushing my hair with my hands when he knocked the door.  
“Babe, it’s me.” He whispered.   
I opened the door while giggling and let him in, who slammed me against the cold wall immediately and kissed me roughly, unzipping his trousers quickly. He took me by my waist and sat me over the sink, causing me to whimper by the coldness. He shushed me with one finger.  
“You can’t make any sound now, ok?” He said, raising both of his eyebrows. I nodded. “I hate you for doing this to me. I was talking to an irrelevant, boring man while my cock was growing bigger just by the thought of you waiting for me here, all mine. It was even hurting me.”  
“I guess you need some release, then.” I teased while biting my lower lip and pulling it with my lips, ripping down his boxers. I took his shaft in my hands and rubbed the tip with my thumb, precum already there. He let out a relief moan. “Sh, you can’t make any noise either.”  
He nodded repeatedly as pumped my hand up and down, watching how he was fighting back his moans, his head thrown back causing his neck to look much bigger and desirable. I attacked it.   
“I don’t want foreplay, Jade.” He groaned. “I just want to…”  
Before he could even finish the sentence I opened my legs and pulled him closer by his shirt, crashing my lips onto his. His hand slipped in between my thighs and stroke them, slowly getting closer to my heat until he finally reached it, cupping it with his massive hand.  
“You took off your panties.” He said, shaking his head and wetting his lips. He slid a single finger into my core and then pulled it out, causing me to moan in pleasure and let my back fall against the mirror behind me, bucking my hips towards him. “You are dripping, babe.”  
Harry knows what he can do to me. He knows he can drive me crazy and make me stand on the edge with only his raspy voice and his whispered words. He can make me reach my top with only his breath against my throbbing core, because he likes to do it slowly, kissing every inch of my body until I am begging for _‘More, Harry, I need more’_ and _‘I want it, I want it all’_. He loves to watch me as I release, slowly pumping in me, staring at how my jaws clench to open wide later, and feeling my nails dig in his muscles.   
Harry loves teasing me until I can’t take it anymore, sliding his warm tongue all along my slit, knowing he is the reason behind my moans and enjoying it; but last night he didn’t feel like doing it. He wanted me right there, in that same moment.   
And I was going to give it all to him, because I _love_ giving it all to him.


	26. Chapter 26

I really want to tell you what happened from two nights ago, since we left the party, until this morning, with every kind of details. I just came home and I am still shaking, trying to assimilate things.   
But I just _can’t_.   
I woke up to the sound of my phone buzzing and awkwardly took it from my bedside table. I sat up and felt the room swinging and my head aching, eyes still closed. But when I opened them I saw a room that wasn’t mine and realized that I was sitting on a bed that wasn’t the one I wake up in every morning.   
“What the…?”  
The first thing I did was touching my body, especially in my lower back, to check if my kidneys were still there. When I looked down on me I saw I was wearing a baggy white t-shirt, and looked around the room searching for my lace dress. It was carefully resting over a wood chair.   
I checked my phone and saw a message from Gina; it was a link to the online page of Sugarscape. I shivered to only the thought of it and started to read.   
_Good morning to all of you but Harry Styles’ new girlfriend, because we are 100% she is still having drunk dreams!  
Yesterday night the five boys of One Direction went to an amazing party, thrown by their mentor in the X Factor, Simon Cowell. We had some of our favourites editors there and they came back to their offices this morning to tell us everything. But the juiciest thing was… Harry came to the party with a brown-haired girl called Jade! Yes, she’s the girl in the pics kissing him under the rain and he introduced her to everybody as his girlfriend.   
Our editors also told us that, sometime during the night, the lovers disappeared for almost an hour. They saw her entering the men toilets and, five minutes later and after talking to a promoter, he entered it as well. Fifty minutes and messy hair later, both of them reappeared with a very big smirk in their lips.   
What were you doing, huh?  
A couple of hours later they left the party and they seemed very wasted. Liam accompanied them outside and phoned a taxi that drove them home, safe.   
So sorry, directioners, but they seem to be serious…  
If you want to see the pictures of her dress, their drunken departure or their kiss minutes before leaving to the toilet as they dance, click here!_  
I couldn’t believe it. I clicked the link and saw the pictures they took of us; I looked horrible on each one of them. So drunk, disheveled, the dress pulled up.   
“No, no, no, no…”  
I buried my face in my hands and shook it. I didn’t notice someone entered the room until I felt the mattress sink next to me and opened my eyes, finding a little body dressed in pink. Her little yellow head had a wide smile made by baby teeth.   
“Hello.” I said, raising my eyebrows to the baby girl next to me. She giggled.   
I stared at her carefully and she seemed familiar to me, but I didn’t have time to guess who was that chubby baby; a blond man with tattoos entered the room and took her in his arms. I looked at him scared, I was in a strange house with an unknown man and his baby.   
“Hello, I’m Tom.” The man said, and I quickly got up. “You are Jade, right?”  
“Excuse me, but where am I?” I asked, causing him to let out a loud laugh, and the baby followed him, playing with the sleeves of his t-shirt.   
“At Harry’s house.”  
“Harry’s house?” I frowned. “Harry Styles’ house?”  
He squinted and nodded, probably wondering if I had hit my head last night or something. The girl looked at me again and something twitched in my mind. The baby was Lux, Lou Teasdale’s -Harry’s stylist- baby, and that man was probably her dad.   
Tom chuckled and told me to follow him. I was too confused to not obey.   
When we left the room he drove me through a long empty corridor to a spacious room where Harry was scrolling down his phone and Lou was reading a magazine, both of them comfortably sitting around a heater. The room was quite empty and the sofa, table and chairs seemed to be temporary; at the end of it there were big cardboard boxes.   
“Jade!” He finally saw me and got up, pecking my lips. “You are awake.”  
“Yes, yes I am…” I murmured, confused.  
Lou turned to look at me and waved, I replied with a grin. Harry saw my confused expression and immediately told me what was going on,  
“I didn’t tell you because I wanted this to be a surprise, you know these past months I’ve been living here and there while I was looking for a house, and… I finally found it!” He smiled happily, wanting to infect me with his excitement. “It’s still not looking very good but I’m quite optimistic and I am throwing a party here tonight. You are invited, but I have a condition: you have to help me with the cleaning.”  
“Ah…Alright, alright.” I slowly sat on his sofa, my head still aching. Lou and her husband were looking at me trying not to laugh; but Lux was cracking up. “Can you remind me how did we get here?”  
“We took a taxi.” He sat next to me and took Lux in his arms, sitting her on his lap. “I couldn’t remember your address, so I told the driver to leave us here. Hope you didn’t freak out too much when you woke up.”  
“Oh, believe me, she was completely lost.” Tom pointed out.  
“She still is.” His wife added.   
I let out a long sigh and yawned, looking at Harry. I could tell he just took a shower -his curls were still wet- and he looked very happy and excited.   
“How come you don’t have a hangover.” My voice was so annoyed it made them three laugh. “You drank more than me, it’s not fair.”  
“Do you want a coffee?” He offered me.  
“Please.”  
I followed him to the kitchen, which was bigger than my whole flat. It had a big table in the middle and a beautiful lamp hanging over it. I sat heavily on a stool and massaged my temples as he made a coffee for me. He left the little cup over the table and sat in front of me, watching me as I drank it.   
“There is an article on Sugarscape about us last night.” I murmured, and his reply was two blinks. “They even say we made love in the toilets, there are pics of me entering the toilet and then exiting it with awful hair…” He didn’t say anything, he just nodded a few times and shrugged. “Doesn’t it bother you?”  
“Does it bother _you_?” He replied, his eyes looking kind of hard. “Sugarscape say every type of things about me and about everybody. I don’t waste my time reading them, Jade. When you came with me to the party I thought you knew what it meant… They are definitely going to talk about it, about you.”  
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes before speaking,  
“I know, I’m sorry.” I mumbled. “I’m so stupid.”  
I felt him getting up from his chair and stepping in front of me, his long arms wrapping my waist and pressing his lips against my neck. I opened my eyes and looked at him, tangling my eyes in his wet curls trying to pull him to my mouth. I pecked his lips a couple of times and sighed again.   
“Good morning, babe.” Harry whispered against my mouth. “I love you.”  
I spent the day at Harry’s house with Lou and her family; they are a very nice and cute people. Harry loves Lou, she treats him as her child, but he cherishes Lux. He loves tickling her and making her laugh, he lies on the floor with her and sings songs until she falls asleep into his arms, and it’s obvious the girl adores him as well. She can barely say a word, but that word is only _Harry_. I really enjoyed watching them together.   
Tom is also very kind, we talked for a while as Harry and Lou cooked our lunch. He told me he’s very happy to be friends with someone like Harry, he said he’s the best 18 years old boy he ever met, and he also told me that he suspects his wife is secretly in love with him.  
“I’m sure they’re dating, Jade.” He joked. “We should do the same. I would love to have an adventure with a young lady.”   
That made me laugh, and I agreed him shaking his hand. We told them while we were having lunch, and they seemed pretty annoyed. Harry said he would never cheat on me, but Lou agreed with us: she wouldn’t mind Harry as her lover. Harry tried to kiss her but she rejected him,  
“Not here, baby.” She joked.   
Just before Lou, Tom and Lux left Harry’s house Hudson called me. He was so excited he couldn’t even speak.  
“Remember the gay guy Gina tried to flirt with time ago but _of course_ he liked me?” He cried out. “Remember he works at Abercrombie?”  
“Why are you telling me this, Hudson?” I asked while everybody was carefully looking at me.   
“I had a date with him two days ago, and he told me that they are looking for a girl to work at the shop.” He said, and I could tell by his voice that he was smiling, and I was starting to smile as well. “I asked him if he remembers you, and he does. He said you are very pretty and you have such a good body, and he told his boss. You have a job interview for tomorrow at 10AM, Jade!”  
I couldn’t even believe it. I thanked Hudson a million of times before hanging up the phone and jumping on Harry’s arms. I still don’t have the job, but it’s a great opportunity. Fortunately I’ll get it, and if I do they’ll pay me more money than they did at Lush and I’ll be surrounded by fit boys all day. I just hope I won’t have to work as one of those girls that stay at the door all day and dance sexily inviting people to come in, because that would be awkward.   
Harry’s party was starting at 9:30PM and we had to do the cleaning as fast as I could. Lou, her baby and Tom left before we started.  
“You know, we have to make dinner for Lux, we would love to stay here and help you two with aaaall this mess…” Tom teased.  
“But we will be back later, don’t worry. I’ll bring some bottles of vodka.”  
Lou kissed Harry’s cheek sweetly and hugged me; so did her husband. Harry stuck his tongue out to Lux and messed her bare hair before they left us alone. We made dinner and I sat over the counter with my legs hanging as I spoke and spoke about everything. I was truly happy and excited about Hudson’s phone call.   
“I’m sure you’ll get the job.” He kissed me, his hands stroking my legs. “You’re the most beautiful girl in London.”  
“Only in London?” I joked, and kissed him back. I looked into his eyes and said what I spent the entire day thinking about, “You are amazing, Harry. That family loves you like you’re their child.”  
“Yes, they are great. I am very glad you got on so well.”  
I kissed him again, tasting the acid flavor of the tomato he just ate on his tongue.   
“And the way you treat Lux… I love watching you two together, it makes me want to…”  
“Have babies with me?” He teased.  
“No!” I replied immediately, and he frowned, slightly annoyed by the radical negative. “I mean… Not yet. You were also incredible to my niece, she is barely 6 months old and you made her fall asleep during the loudest house party ever… You’d be a great daddy.”   
“Imagine little Harry’s running up and down this house.”  
“Ugh, so annoying.” I laughed, causing him to laugh as well. “Having to bare with more than one Harry… no, please.”  
“We wouldn’t be able to have sex.” He said, looking horrified. “That sucks.”  
“Is that the only thing you think about?”   
“Pretty much, yes.” He replied.  
I pushed him gently, acting like it bothered me as I decided I wanted to tease him a bit before cleaning the whole house. I attacked his mouth roughly and slid my hands underneath his t-shirt, stroking his back up and down. He was surprised at first by my sudden reaction, but then he relaxed and pulled me closer.  
“What are you thinking about now, Harry?” I breathed into his ear as I wrapped my legs around him, grinding my hips to his.   
“You.” He groaned.  
“Tell me more about that.” I smirked.  
“I’m thinking about how much I love to fuck you over any kind of counter, table or sink.” He bit down on my earlobe. “And how much you love it as well, because you moan so fucking loud every time…”  
“Do you know what am I thinking about, Harry?” I asked, kissing under his jawline. He shook his head and my hands travelled down to his belt, drawing his abs first and resting there. It was really fucking hard to say, but I finally spoke. “I’m thinking about how late we are going to be if we don’t start cleaning and tidying this house right now.”  
I jumped off the counter and left the room, Harry’s eyes following me incredulously and his jaw dropping on the floor.  
“You must be kidding me!” He yelled from the kitchen, causing me to giggle evilly. 

I heard that the best way to stop a hangover is getting drunk, and now I am 100% sure that’s true. I took a long shower after preparing everything and started drinking when the first person came into the house. I promise I am not an alcoholic, I only drink in special occasions…but with Harry around, everything is a special occasion. Everybody looks fab and everything is amazingly in, so I feel kind of left out. I drink to be talkative and have more fun, I swear to God.   
I was having a great time at the party, I already knew some of the people there: the boys, Lou and Tom, Grimmers… Everything was ok until the clock hit 3AM and people started to leave, only the closest friends staying at home. I excused myself from the living room and went to Harry’s bedroom to check my phone, but I was too drunk to tell which one was mine and which one was Harry’s, so I mistook it and opened Harry’s Whatsapp. A lot of conversations popped out and I frowned, confused. That was when I noticed it wasn’t my phone and was about to leave it over the bedside table again, but saw a message that caught my attention.  
 _Cara D. – I would love to repeat last week._  
I stared at the message for a while, wondering what happened last week. Harry wasn’t in London. And who the hell was Cara D.?   
She was online, and I decided I would find out and started to type fast.  
 _What happened last week?_  
She didn’t take too much to answer, but enough for me to see the little pic upside in the right corner. I clicked on it and saw a stunning girl with grey-green eyes and fading blond hair. It was Cara Delevingne, the model that magazines said Harry had a thing with.   
I clicked on the conversation again.   
_Cara D. – Like you don’t remember… Don’t worry, it will be our secret. You are a wild boy, Harry. I love it._  
I dropped the phone on the bed like it was burning coil and threw my hands to my mouth, covering it. It was obvious; while he was out he hooked up with her. It was obvious, obvious, _obvious_. But my mind couldn’t assimilate it.   
My eyes started to get flooded as my mind pictured them together, as close as I am with him during nights, her stunning, perfect body sweating against Harry’s as she craved for more and he gave it to her because _‘You are wild boy, Harry’_. I still can imagine them flirting at a club or a posh party, I can hear him whisper into her ear and ask her if he could drive her home. Or maybe they did it right there, just like we did two nights ago. Maybe he told her to do the same: _‘Lock yourself into the men toilet and wait for me, baby.’_  
“Why would you do it, Harry?” I mumbled to myself, burying my hands into my hair and tried to fight the tears wetting my cheeks, but I just couldn’t.  
I don’t know how much time did I spend there, sitting with my back against the bed as my mind tortured me. I should have closed the door, though.   
“Jade? Are you ok?” Niall asked when he was walking towards the bathroom. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”  
I didn’t reply, I didn’t move a muscle either. He squatted in front of me and removed my hands from my face, forcing me to look at him. His bright eyes looked surprised and he frowned, confused.   
“What is wrong?”   
“Did you know it?” I said with clenched jaw. “Did you know that Harry cheated on me a week ago?”  
He gasped, opening his mouth to say something, but the words didn’t leave his mouth. He looked pretty guilty; he totally knew it. He got up and murmured a low _‘I’ll go tell Harry that you’re here’._  
Minutes later Harry entered the room carefully, closing the door behind him, and I was already standing in the middle of it, walking in circles around it and holding his phone between my shaking fingers.   
“Jade…” He started, but I immediately cut him off.  
“You weren’t going to tell me, were you? You are such a good actor, Harry Styles, I didn’t even notice.” I spat. “But you should delete your messages sometimes, or at least hide your phone from me if you have something to hide.”  
He was staring right into my furious, swollen eyes and he took a step forward, trying to get closer to me. He opened his arms and shrugged, his grin drowning in guiltiness.  
“I was drunk, Jade, and I was missing you so bad… I lost my mind and I saw you on her.” He whispered with broken voice.   
“And did you find me, Harry? Did you find me on her?” I cried out, turning around to not look at him.   
“No, I didn’t.” He said, fighting a sob that craved to come out from his throat. “I am sorry, Jade… I regret it so, so much…”  
I shook my head repeatedly, my shoulders shaking violently with each sob. He got closer to me and wrapped his warms arms around me, stopping my sharp movements and swinging me, his chest against my back.   
“Please, please, forgive me, Jade…”  
“I don’t know, Harry.” I dried the tears in my cheeks. “Why did you do it? You thought I would never know? You thought I wouldn’t mind?”  
“She didn’t know we are together.” He said, and I felt the vibrations of his voice against me. Then, he frowned. “You also cheated on me, Jade…”  
I pushed him away, looking at his scared eyes. My drunk mind was spinning.   
“Don’t you dare to defend her or blame me, I already know she’s amazing and better than me, I have two eyes and I can see she’s perfect and she wouldn’t ever cheat on you.” I yelled. “But we weren’t even dating when that happened, Harry. I can’t believe you did this to me.”  
He didn’t say anything so I took my bag and pretended to leave his house, but he grabbed my wrist.  
“Don’t go, Jade.” He begged. “Stay the night. You are drunk and mad now, please spend with me the night… we’ll talk tomorrow. Please, Jade.”  
I looked to his bright green eyes and felt an intense pain in my chest that travelled down to my stomach, feeling like ten kicks. But I nodded lightly and he smiled in a broken way, cupping my face in his hands and pulling me closer to kiss my wet, salty lips. He kissed my tears as well before laying me on the bed and covering me with a thick quilt, leaving me alone at his bedroom for a while before he went to say goodbye to his guests.   
When the house was in complete silence he entered in the dark room again, slipping into the bed with me and pressing himself against me, spooning. He felt my shaking body and intertwined his fingers around mine, kissing under my jaw.   
“Will you sing for me, Harry?” I asked with my voice still broken, and he placed his lips closer to my ear like so many nights, starting to sing one of his new songs,  
 _And I can lend you broken parts  
That might fit like this   
And I will give you all my heart   
So we can start it all over again_  
I knew I was going to forgive him even before he told me to stay, before he lay next to me and sang into my ear with the most beautiful voice I have ever heard, causing tears to flood my eyes again.   
And it’s because I love Harry so much, I love him so freaking much…  
 _You’ll never know how to make it on your own  
And you’ll never show weakness for letting go   
I guess you’re still hurt if this is over   
But do you really want to be alone?_  
No, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be without him, I can’t. But it burns my chest thinking about him with any other person, it makes me feel physical pain. I know I can forgive it… but it’ll be really hard to forget.   
“I love you, Jade.” He whispered into my ear before falling asleep. “I love you more than anybody in this world. Forgive me for being an asshole.”


	27. Chapter 27

I got the job in Abercrombie. They pay me a good salary and everybody there is nice to me, they are constantly telling me I’m pretty though it makes me feel awkward, specially when teenage boys come to the shop just to watch the girls and I doing stuff -place on its side the clothes that fall on the floor-. Anyway, it’s much better than Lush; at least my boss there is nice. I am so glad to Husdon, he is the _best_ best friend ever.   
I also met a good boy at work, he is one of the models working in there and he seems to have a special attraction to me. He asked me if we could go to have dinner together a couple of days ago and I accepted it. His name is Kay, he is such a fit guy and he’s very kind.   
“Kay like O-kay?” I said the first day when he introduced himself. It was my worst joke ever, but he laughed.   
While we were having dinner we talked about him, he told me he’s from Bournemouth but he has friends in Brighton. Luckily, he doesn’t know any of my friends or relatives there. I guess I gave him a wrong message, because when we finished having dinner he offered to drive me home and tried to kiss me.   
“I have a boyfriend.” I said when I rejected his kiss.   
“You… didn’t tell me about him during dinner.” He stuttered, confused.  
“Well, I didn’t consider it was necessary…”  
“But you flirted with me.” He was amazingly surprised; I guess not many people reject him.   
“I am sorry, Kay. You are nice and very good looking, but I… I am with someone else.”  
“You don’t look very sure about that.”   
I shook my head and entered home, thanking him for the nice night we spent. He is still trying to steal a kiss from me, though.   
About Garret, he asked me for sorry this morning at University. He said these past months he wasn’t a good teacher to me, and apologized for that. I accepted his apologize happily and told him that he is the best teacher I have ever had no matter what. That’s one of the only things that made me happy in the past days.   
A week and a half has passed by the party at Harry’s house, and nothing has happened. And when I say _nothing_ , I mean it. Harry called me a few times and I didn’t answer any of them, so he doesn’t call anymore. I used to stare at the phone buzzing over the table, his name lighting the screen with a picture of us below it, and wait until it stops so I could begin to cry.   
I miss him quite terribly, truth be said, but I can’t look straight to his eyes; at least not yet. I know I just said nothing happened, but it’s just because it hurts to remember.   
Five nights ago Harry came to my house, knocking repeatedly and yelling my name. I opened the door and saw him standing in front of me, his beanie wet from the rain causing his curls to drip over his face, not making it sure if what was on his cheeks were raindrops or _tear_ drops. Because, obviously, he had been crying.   
“Can I come in?”  
We talked for hours. _We argued_ for hours, blaming things on each other until our throats couldn’t yell anymore and we let ourselves fall over the sofa, forcing our lungs to breathe with normality again. I closed my eyes and felt him on the other side of the sofa, I could feel his heartbeat and his breathing, his throat swallowing and his muscles tensing as he massaged his own temples. That was when he spoke,  
“If you don’t forgive me, Jade… I… I don’t know what we could do.” He murmured. “I don’t know what’s going to happen between us.”  
That sounded like a break up. It made me feel standing in the edge of a 60 floors skyscraper, and my heart panicked. I shook my head violently and pulled myself closer to his body and stuttered,  
“I…”   
But no other sound came out from my mouth. He moved his eyes to look at me and smiled sadly, his fingerprints caressing my cheek and drying the tear that just fell off my eye.   
“I don’t even deserve you. I don’t deserve these tears. I am a horrible person.” He whispered, staring into my eyes. I shook my head again.   
“You do deserve me, Harry.” I whispered back. “And you are so not horrible, I mean it… You are everything I could ask for…you are everything I want and need, and that’s what hurts so bad. You are the kind of person that inspires people to do things, big things. And maybe you didn’t notice, but I am doing big things because of you, Harry, because I love you. Only the fact that I fell for you, that you made me fall for you… That’s the biggest thing I have done in all my life.” I moved my eyes from his to stare at my own hands, biting my lip. “And you made a mistake…you made a big mistake, but that doesn’t mean I can’t forgive you.”  
I kept staring at my hands for a while, Harry breathing next to me. And eventually, both of our bodies and our hearts made a pact without considering our opinions, without considering what our brains wanted; they needed each other desperately. They needed each other to survive that night, so our mouths looked for each other with no eyes and finally crashed. And they felt a rush of relief, _we_ felt a rush of relief when they touched, like two magnets that had been wanting to collide for so long but something was stopping them.  
And we made love on that sofa for the thousandth time, but this time it had a different taste. I tried to guess what was it, and only know I understand it. Harry tasted like goodbye, his lips and his thighs were slowly saying goodbye to me, cutting all the threads that have him tied to me, and he wasn’t even noticing.   
So when I lay over his naked chest and cried in silence and he asked me why, my response was simple,  
“I already miss you.”  
And he understood it without understanding it, and replied with his low, husky voice,  
“You can’t depend on anybody, Jade.”  
He left my house that same night, he didn’t spend the night with me, and promised to call. He hasn’t called. He hasn’t texted. I haven’t heard from him in 8 damn nights, and I wonder if it means things are over. And I hope not, I hope it isn’t over yet, it just can’t be over.   
I can’t sleep, I stare at my mobile phone waiting for his call; I repeat every single word he had said to me during the past four months searching for something that may explain to me what the hell is happening. Because I have never been so sad, so broken, torn… I feel like drowning. I have never needed him so much; I never needed an answer so much.   
“Stay with me.” I usually whisper to myself. “Or walk out of my life.”  
And the worst thing is I know that when he comes back to give me the answer, to save me from drowning in my own thoughts, he will decide to murder me instead of filling my lungs again.


	28. Chapter 28

Have you ever felt to much pain inside of you all you want to do is yell, but not in a loud voice because you can’t? You would love to hit everything, scream out of your lungs, but you cannot. Because in your inside you feel like that, but outside you are nothing else than a statue. You clench your jaws until you can’t barely feel them and you let the pain flood you, your own punishment. You know you should have done something, you know you should do something, but you are petrified. You can’t even more your fingers, you are so scared you can’t even think about moving your fingers. You feel like dying, a sweet but rough way to die. Sweet agony. Slowly, painfully slowly, but peacefully. You wait for it, you need it, you need to feel so much pain you stop feeling it, you stop feeling anything. Because feelings are too painful to feel them, feelings are cruel. They rip you off, they laugh at you, they say ‘We told you’.   
_‘We told you not to fall in love with him, Jade, thousands of times. You just didn’t want to listen.’_  
It’s fourth December and I am wondering what should I bring to Brighton. Yes, I am going back to Brighton with my family during Christmas because I am not spending my holidays with Harry. Gina and Hudson asked me if I wanted to go with them somewhere in France, but I felt like it was too much, and my sister begged me to come back home.   
I have nothing in London right now, so why not?  
Harry and I broke up three days ago. I still feel like dying, every night I sit in front of the door, on the floor, waiting for him to come back and tell me that he can’t live without me, that he’s sorry for everything. But deep in side of me I’m more than sure that won’t happen.   
We are done. 

Three days ago he knocked my door and asked if he could come in. He told me to sit down but I didn’t want to, so he stepped still in front of me and stared into my eyes for a while before speaking,  
“I am not going to spend Christmas here.” He said. “I am going on tour with the boys for two months. We are leaving in tomorrow night.”  
I frowned, feeling the pit of my stomach shriek.   
“Why didn’t you tell me before? We made plans for Christmas together…and you already knew you were going on tour?”  
He opened his mouth to say something, stuttering.  
“You looked so excited about it, Jade… I love going on tour, but believe me I wanted to stay here with you so bad.”  
The past in that sentence felt like a stab. My eyes blurred with tears as I thought about all the things we planned to do and now they were just a pious lie. There isn’t going to be any smokestack or mistletoe, no hot chocolate and Christmas sweaters. We aren’t going to lie together in the sofa to keep each other warm and talk until we fall asleep.  
“That is selfish.” I said in a whisper, my face clenching in a hurt grin.   
He watched my sparkly eyes for a while, lightly caressing my cheek with one finger and drawing the line of my trembling lips.   
“We need to talk, Jade.” He murmured.   
I don’t know if it was the sentence, that sentence that everybody says sometime during their lives, or if it was because of his voice and that look in his eyes, but I knew what was going to be next. I didn’t say anything, I simply nodded.  
“I… I don’t know how to say this.” His voice was weak; his eyes had a sad spark. “But this can’t last any longer.”  
“What do you mean?” I asked, starting to feel that sensation in my stomach: horror. He didn’t say anything, he just stared at my scared eyes begging them not to cry. “What do you mean, Harry?”  
“What you said that other night... It’s beautiful, Jade, but you can’t depend on me. I am just a faggot that cheated on the thing he loves the most. Maybe you can forgive me, but I can’t forgive myself.” He said in a whisper, intertwining his fingers in mine. “I am only fucking up your life, Jade… and I am really sorry about it.”  
“No, you’re not. You are only fixing it.” My voice was a desperate cry, my hand released his and clenched around his shirt, trying to make him stay. Because I could feel him far away already. “I love you, Harry. I love you, I love you, I love you, _I love you._ ”  
I tried to kiss his lips desperately, but he avoided it. I cupped his cheeks with my hands to make him look at me but he looked away and shook his head, rejecting me for the first time ever. My eyes were flooded, screaming for help.  
“Don’t tell me you don’t love me anymore, because that’s a lie.” I mumbled. “I know you love me, Harry. I know you love me as much as I do.”  
“I love you more.” He said while looking into my eyes, and I believed it, but I knew it wasn’t enough. “That’s why I am breaking up with you, Jade, can’t you see?” Those words in his mouth made my knees weak and the world tremble around me. In a moment the room turned into a cage and my chest ache. “I want you to continue with your normal life. I want you to reunite with your family and be comfortable at University; I don’t want to be selfish and make you wait for me for months while I’m away… I don’t want to hurt you again like I did, Jade.”  
“But I want to wait for you, Harry.” I was covering my mouth with one hand, my heart racing as my lungs ran out of air. “I want to be with you _forever_ , remember? I want to be yours forever, Harry, please… _please_ …”  
Harry’s face was a hurt grin, biting his upper lip hard and clenching his fists, fighting to not let his eyes get wet. My throat was so dried up it was hurting me, the only thing I could do was shake my head and hold my stomach, under my chest, fearing it could break any moment; something powerful was aching me there.  
“It’s better for you, Jade… For us.” Harry smiled, but it broke. “I love you more than anybody else in this world, and it won’t ever change, but… I don’t feel like I’m being fair to you.”  
“I don’t fucking mind about being fair, don’t you get it?” I screamed, taking a few steps back and throwing my arms to my head, the hair burdening me. “I just want you to love me the way you know, bad or good, I don’t care. I need you with me, Harry.”  
“See, Jade?” His voice was calm, but his hands were trembling. “I fucked you up. You shouldn’t need me… you shouldn’t need anybody but yourself, Jade.”  
“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me, Harry.” I whispered, causing him to close his eyes and let two tears roll down his cheeks.   
It took him a long time to answer.   
“I know I did.”  
“Then look at me now. Look at me, Harry. Do I look hurt?”  
He slowly opened his eyes and raised them until they reached mine, red and swollen, my cheeks furrowed by tears. I couldn’t believe it, I just can’t imagine my life without him, I have no idea what to do. He is gone. He is not with me anymore, he is not here. He won’t come home in the middle of the night, I won’t sleep next to him ever again, I won’t hear him laughing and he won’t kiss me again, he won’t make love to me.   
“You look broken.” He whispered, taking a step forward to hug me, but I took one back. That caused him to smile in a sad way and enter his hands in his pockets, shrugging his shoulders and getting dangerously close to the door. “I just want you to be able to be happy without me.”  
He opened the door and was about to leave when I cried out his name, running towards him and wrapping my arms around his neck, burying my head on his chest and letting violent sobs get out from my chest. He slowly rounded my waist with his arms and let my cry, pressing his wet cheek against mine and swinging me gently.   
“You didn’t ask me what I want.” I whispered when I got a bit calmer into his arms. “ _That_ is not fair, Harry.”  
“I didn’t ask you because I know your answer, Jade.” He whispered back, kissing my forehead and leaving his lips there, his eyes fighting the tears again.   
“Stay with me. Don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to feel lonely again, and I know you don’t either…”  
“Jade, stop making it so fucking hard.” He said, pushing me away sharply and looking right into my eyes. That was when I noticed he was even more torn than me, that was when I noticed how much it was hurting him. “I am going to be away for I don’t know how long and I don’t want to see you fading. I don’t want to see ice in your eyes and separate worlds, I don’t want to come back home to you and find empty hugs and indifferent kisses. You don’t know how much I want to _hate_ you right now and forever, because hating is easy. You have no idea how much this is hurting me, seeing you like this, broken for me; how much it hurts breaking all my promises. I am just asking for a quick end, no pain. Believe me, I never wanted to hurt you, Jade…” He was crying and screaming, crying and whispering, crying and begging. “And although we become strangers… I won’t ever forget you. I promise.”

He left my house silently, whispering his last goodbye. I watched him walk away from me for the thousandth time, but this time it was way different. I knew he isn’t going to knock my door again, I knew it was the last time I am going to see his tall figure fade.   
And my legs couldn’t hold my own weight, so I let them sink and my back slide down the wall until I was sitting on the floor, pressed against the doorframe as the cold December wind broke my lungs and froze my tears.   
The pain I felt watching him go is still there, slowly eating my body and soul, and I don’t feel like it will fade anytime soon. I have three weeks of Christmas at Brighton in front of me and I feel like they are going to be the longest of my life, the _‘I told you’_ glances in everybody’s eyes, the long cold nights on my own, the feeling in the pit of my stomach that doesn’t let me breathe…  
He didn’t even give me a goodbye kiss.


	29. Chapter 29

I wake up every morning and I don’t want to do anything, and I don’t do anything -I couldn’t do it anyway. I just lay there listening to my own heartbeat and feeling the blood rush through my body and it doesn’t make any sense.  
Nothing makes sense at all.  
I can’t believe that he’s gone, and with him his lips and his words. The many ways he had to say _‘I love you’ _.  
Every time we were making love and he was watching me cum under his strong touch, the way his raspy voice used to moan _‘I love you’_ ; every time we were simply kissing and playing like kids in bed, laughing and doing tickle fights, the way his lips repeated the words _‘IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou’_ like they had no ending; every time he sang me to sleep although I never got to fall asleep because I wanted to hear his voice, the way he breathed an _‘I love you’_ against the goodnight kiss thinking I wasn’t hearing him.  
And my favorite one, those moments when he suddenly got sad and worried for no reason -Harry looks beautiful when he’s sad- while watching me do anything, when his eyes got sparkly and his voice weak, and he pronounced the words very clearly, his lips tracing them carefully _‘I love you, Jade’_. And it had my name after it because he couldn’t believe it, and I always repeated _‘I love you, Harry’_ because I couldn’t believe it either.   
I loved seeing everything in his eyes, and I loved how he could see anything in mine.  
I’ve been here for a week and a half now, and today I have exactly the same time left. I don’t know if I want to go back to London or not. I really want to see Gina and Hudson again, and I would love to be so busy with University I don’t even have to think about him -his bare name makes my heart twitch- and I can start doing something but eating Christmas chocolate and crying myself to sleep.   
What is the sense of Christmas if you can’t be with the one you love the most?  
I hate seeing my family looking at me with pity and greatness, everybody but my grandma. A few days ago she told me to sit down with her and stared at the space for so long I thought she didn’t have anything to say actually, but she finally spoke,   
“You see, Jade, my beautiful, little girl… We all are very worried about you, we don’t like seeing you like this…especially these days…” She started, and I rolled my eyes back, getting ready for another non-sense speech. “But I don’t feel shame for you at all. I am genuinely happy for you, you want to know why?” I frowned and nodded. “I also had 20 years, and I also fell in love with the wrong boy.”  
I listened to the whole story for I don’t know how long, but I just couldn’t get enough from it. Her old eyes, full of wisdom, were lost in somewhere with her blurred memories. I thought about the way she looked at me around a month ago when my parents were talking to me at the kitchen, tears in her eyes.  
As she told me the story of her first love I couldn’t hold back the tears either, remembering how Harry made me promise I would remember him forever and tell our story to my grandchildren sometime, just like she was doing to me now.   
I wondered if I would be able to remember so much about him, the shape of his body and the taste of his lips, his scent and the way his mouth opens when he _actually_ laughs.   
“He seems amazing.” I murmured, and she raised her bright eyes at me for the first time, drawing a smile that made her look younger.   
“He was.” She agreed, playing nervously with her old fingers.  
“Have you seen him since then?” I asked, and she shook her head. There was a question that was aching on my throat, though. I finally let it out, “Do you love my granddad as much as him?”  
She looked at me for a long time with her never breaking smile, and I can tell she saw my desperation because, as she shook her head, she started talking,  
“There is no doubt I love your grandfather more than anybody in this world, he is the man that has treated me the best ever, he gave me everything he has… He makes everything much easier, and he definitely loves me more than I know although so much time has passed…” She took a long pause before continuing, closing her eyes for a while and taking a deep breath. I waited patiently. “But he isn’t like him, Jade. I will never forget that boy, I could never forget the way he made me feel… He made me the happiest and the saddest girl in this world, he broke my heart and recomposed it so many times…”  
“…Until he broke it for the last time and didn’t come back to recompose it.” I murmured. “And now I don’t know how to fix it, Grandma. I don’t think I’ll find anybody like him, someone that can help me to heal it and…”  
“You won’t find anybody like him, my girl, but you will find someone that makes you feel safe and loved.” She replied, cutting me off. “Probably, he won’t make you feel as crazy and stupid as your boy Harry… But you will find a man that will love you good, and with the time you will push his image away, but never forget it. Listen, kid… The worst thing you can do is trying to forget him, because you won’t.”  
“And what am I supposed to do, then?” I said, my voice breaking into a sob.   
“Be happy.” She replied, smiling again. “He told you he wanted you to be happy without him, right? Do it. Be happy without him, and maybe he won’t ever actually know… but he’ll feel it. And you will feel the same.”  
I hugged her after that, letting the tears I was holding to travel down my cheeks as she caressed my hair, murmuring I will be fine very soon.   
I want to believe her and I am trying to be happy without him, but it’s so hard… I am scared that I can actually forget about it, forget his fingers and how good they felt wrapped around mine.   
I am glad about something, anyway.   
I am friends with Bree again; she came to my house and apologized for everything. She said she was just jealous of me because I made it, I moved from here and got a better life -I told her that, right now, it isn’t pretty good- and she stayed here with the same people, doing the same day after day. I forgave her, of course, and I also asked for sorry; I wasn’t the best of the friends during these years…   
But she is helping me a lot. We hang out almost everyday; she tries to convince me to go to parties with her and the girls -she also confessed me she kind of hates them, and I confessed her I also do, since always- but she doesn’t usually win. I don’t feel like going out and drinking with people that will definitely ask me about it.  
“But you’ll have fun.” She always says.  
“I won’t, and you know it.” I always reply. “I like staying here by the fire, I promise.”  
I really don’t, to be honest. I hate the smokestack, it’s too hot and it hypnotizes my eyes until they hurt, but I rather hurting my eyes than having to go out and find Stephen, for example. I haven’t seen him during this week and I really hope I won’t.   
My sister and my brother are also helping me a lot, each one on his own way. My sister is almost as sad as me, she cried while I was telling her everything. I guess it’s good to have someone to talk about him. My brother, however, doesn’t let me talk about him at all. He’s always distracting me and telling me to go to some places with them, Christmas shopping and the cinema mainly.   
Gina and Hudson call me almost everyday and we usually skype, they tell me every kind of crazy stories that had happened to them in France and, sometimes, I doubt if they are true or not.   
The five of them are amazing.  
But, you know… I told myself I will do what he asked me to. I will live my own life and have him on my mind as the boy I loved the most ever, but never in a sad way, because Harry wasn’t a sad guy. He loved laughing and he loved seeing me laughing and, especially, making me laugh, and I want to be happy for myself, but also for him.   
I know it will be hard since he is everywhere, everybody talks about him -both shit and amazing things- and they also talk about me. I ignored it for these past months, but I am not stupid. I sometimes see nasty stuff about me, mainly on twitter, and try to think it’s the essence of being a fangirl. I also was a fangirl not so long ago, and I also hated my favorite bands’ girlfriends with burning passion.   
There is something that genuinely hurts me, though. You know, I never had a proper New Years Eve kiss, and this year I won’t have it either. And the next one I might have it, but not from the person I want.   
Not this Christmas, not anymore; I won’t feel Harry’s soft lips on mine ever again, and it makes my whole body ache.__


	30. Epilogue

I know it’s been too long since the last time I came here to tell what’s going on my life, but I find it too hard. Four months have passed, but whenever I open this blog I have the temptation to read through all my posts, everything I wrote during the months I was with Harry… This is the first time ever I haven’t done it, and I guess it’s a good sign.   
I still don’t like when people ask me if I’m fine, because I never have the right answer. I am not sad, but I am not happy. I feel like hanging on a weird state and I can’t do anything about it.   
It is true that I’m much better than before, I go out with Gina and Hudson almost every weekend -I have a lot of work in Uni- and I am starting to hang out with Kay sometimes; I think I might like him. But it feels weird, strange… whenever I kiss his lips, no matter how hard I try, I see Harry’s image and I have to pull away, murmuring again and again how sorry I am about it... It gets even worse when we have sex. Kay understands it, he is such a good boy.   
I believe it feels this weird because, when you spend so much time memorizing someone’s body, how do your fingers fit between theirs or getting used to the way they hold you in your arms and kiss your forehead, it is hard to conform yourself to another person. It takes a lot of time for people to learn someone’s body language, and once they learn it, it is really hard to erase it, but it is way more difficult to learn another person’s body language once you got used to the first one. It feels like you are in a strange land, and it might be refreshing and nice but it can also be baffling and sad, because you really can’t understand the stupid way they kiss your lips.   
Something that bothers me is the fact that, for Harry, it’s much easier to forget about me. I have to bear with his image almost everyday: on the street, on magazines, at a CDs shop, when I turn my TV on… It’s quite unfair and it makes me want to hate him and remember him as the asshole that promised me shit and cheated on me after telling me I was the one, but… I’m incapable to do that. He gave me the best time of my life, and it’s incomparable to the bad times he’s making me go through. The amount of times he told me he loved me isn’t parallel to the amount of times I’ve cried over him, and it’s because Harry was _in love_ with those three words. He used to say them without actually saying them, and it was because his eyes were in love with them as well.   
He was in love with _me_ , and that’s the biggest thing that has ever happened in my life. I am not sure about him -I really hope he will too-, but I am not going to break our promise, I am not going to forget him.   
I will die loving Harry Styles, the biggest asshole and the most beautiful person in this goddamn world.


End file.
